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“This is a massive $250-billion market and still in the early days of a 25-year transformation,” said Michael Serbinis, CEO, Kobo. “At Kobo, we’re focused on people who are passionate about reading, who love books, who want an experience that lets them get lost in words. Our commitment to delivering the best content, devices and overall experience anywhere in the world is attracting more Readers than ever before.” One of the big proponents to Kobo’s continued growth is their aggressive international expansion. In the next six months they intend to expand to India, China and Russia. Kobo is estimated by publishers to represent up to 50% of digital sales in established countries like Canada and 20% in new markets such as France, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil. New countries or established ones, we go where the readers are. That’s what drives us,” said Michael Tamblyn, Chief Content Officer, Kobo. “And in each country we enter, we strive to give them a reading experience filled with the best local authors and publishers, in partnership with the best retailers, constantly pushing the boundaries of what reading can be.” With its e-Reader devices available across North America at www.kobo.com, Kobo’s experience is further made accessible with its iOS and Android apps. In Q1, the Kobo Android app was downloaded millions of times resulting in a 378 percent increase year over year. The company expects to appease many users of the Blackberry 10 OS, by releasing an official app in June. Kobo Experiences Massive Digital Growth in Q1 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Kobo Experiences Massive Digital Growth in Q1 2013
Apple Approves Sequential Digital Comics App for UK Store; US to Follow
| Apple has given the green light to Panel Nine, the digital publisher whose works include Eddie Campbell’s Dapper John and David Lloyd’s Kickback, for a multi-comic app, Sequential, that will feature work from an array of British and American comics creators. The app goes live in the UK and Ireland Apple stores tomorrow and the U.S. release will follow shortly. The Panel Nine apps stand out from the crowd because of their sleek, uncluttered design and smooth operation. The only way to describe it is that Panel Nine comics feel like the digital analog of an expensive art book. Adding to that is the fact that each of these apps featured a single work, or the work of a single creator, with a main-course comic and added features (notes, covers, sketches, etc.), making a very nice, deluxe package. Panel Nine is also the digital distributor for the UK children’s comic The Phoenix, which they package in a similar, but more kid-friendly, format. Sequential is a departure in that it will be a storefront for a variety of comics, which can be purchased in-app. The Facebook page lists some of the titles that will be available: Hugo Tate, by Nick Abadzis; The Accidental Salad, by Joe Decie; Science Tales, by Darryl Cunningham (the U.S. title is How to Fake a Moon Landing); and the much-acclaimed anthology Nelson. Why yes, those are all British comics, but if you squint at the teaser image above, you will see some American titles, too, including Drawn Together, by the husband-and-wife team of Robert and Aline Crumb. The app will include two free titles on launch day, Cherish, by ILYA, and Fictions, by Terry Wiley and Russell Willis (who is also the publisher of the app). Sequential is available only for iPads, at least initially, and it will have a panel-by-panel view feature, Sequential Mode. Here’s the description:
While comiXology and the Kindle, Nook, and iBooks stores carry a range of indy graphic novels, Sequential is the only app that is completely dedicated to them, in both design and contents, and in that regard, it is opening up a new niche in the digital-comics world. Apple Approves Sequential Digital Comics App for UK Store; US to Follow is a post from: E-Reader News |
Tablets to Outsell Desktops in 2013, Sub 10 Inch Segment Emerging More Popular
| Research firm IDC has come up with some new findings that confirm what an earlier survey had revealed; tablet PC shipments will outpace that of notebooks in 2013. The survey also revealed that shipments of tablets will surpass all forms of computing, including desktops and notebooks by 2015. Shipment of tablet devices are expected to grow at 58.7 percent on a year-over-year basis in 2013, so that there will be no less than 229.3 million tablets shipped in 2013, a healthy increase over the 144.5 million units shipped in 2012. The above mentioned figure for 2013 is a bit less than the 256.5 million units that DisplaySearch believes will be shipped this year. However, a few million units here and there apart, what is clear is that tablet devices represent the future of personal computing, while desktops are a dying breed. "Tablets surpassing portables in 2013, and total PCs in 2015, marks a significant change in consumer attitudes about compute devices and the applications and ecosystems that power them. IDC continues to believe that PCs will have an important role in this new era of computing, especially among business users. But for many consumers, a tablet is a simple and elegant solution for core use cases that were previously addressed by the PC," said Ryan Reith, Program Manager for IDC's Mobility Trackers. The survey has also revealed that the 7 inch category has emerged as the preferred tablet size that consumers are increasingly buying. The segment has already outsold the 10 inch tablet category, and diminishing prices are expected to further boost sales in this category. As per the IDC finding, the average selling price of the tablet is expected to shrink 10.8 percent to $381, while the same for a PC is likely to double to $635. That's another solid reason for consumers to adopt tablets in a bigger way. Then, of course, there is the issue of the functionality that a tablet brings. As Jitesh Ubrani, Research Analyst for the Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker, says, “Apple’s success in the education market has proven that tablets can be used as more than just a content consumption or gaming device… These devices are learning companions, and as tablet prices continue to drop, the dream of having a PC for every child gets replaced with the reality that we can actually provide a tablet for every child.”
Tablets to Outsell Desktops in 2013, Sub 10 Inch Segment Emerging More Popular is a post from: E-Reader News |
Rumor: Apple Launching 12.9 Inch iPad Maxi in Early 2014
| Apple has had wild success with the iPad and the iPad Mini. So how about an iPad Maxi next? That's the latest rumor, if you can stretch your imagination enough to believe it. The rumor has its origins at the Korean site ETNews.com, and no matter how outrageous it might seem right now, the site does have a reputation of being fairly accurate in its predictions with Apple devices. The site is claiming Apple is in talks with display manufacturers to supply it with screens that measure 12.9 inches diagonally. The tablet is expected to be launched in the first half of 2014 and will allow the California based company to have better leverage against the emerging crop of ultrabooks and touch based notebook devices. Apple intends to take on these with the iPad Maxi which, it is believed, will offer better portability and battery life. Meanwhile, while consumer preference seems to have shifted towards smaller screen sized tablets (as is evident in the 7.9 inch iPad Mini overtaking the regular iPad in sales), there also has been a clamor for a bigger iPad. Apple had earlier launched a 128 GB iPad aimed primarily at the professionals and business community. Maybe, the iPad Maxi is a clever ploy on part of Apple to help cash in on the popularity of the iPad range to gatecrash into the ultrabook segment. Or it could be just one of those rumors that you need to ingest with a rather generous dose of salt. Time will tell.
Rumor: Apple Launching 12.9 Inch iPad Maxi in Early 2014 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Waterproof Kindle Paperwhite Now Available in Time for Summer
| I’ve seen waterproof cases for the Kindle and other ebook readers and tablets before, and I’ve even heard of people putting their Kindle in a Ziploc bag to keep out moisture in watery venues, but now there is a company called Waterfi that is selling fully waterproofed Kindle Paperwhites out of the box. A waterproof [...] |
Vook, NYT Release Original Content eBook
| Vook, an award-winning ebook development platform, has worked with some of the biggest names in journalism to bring aggregated ebook content to readers and to help some of the country’s major newspapers bring their archived content to the ebook arena. But today, Vook announced its first original ebook title released from the New York Times. Written by veteran NYT writer Barry Meier, the book, A World of Hurt: Fixing Pain Medicine's Biggest Mistake, explores one of the little-known criticisms of the current state of prescription medications, namely, that some of the pain medications that were widely prescribed only a few years ago were not as safe as once believed. “Authors have the talent and the craft to write the original book—but they need support and creative services to bring the best possible ebook version of their vision to market,” explained Matt Cavnar, VP of Business Development at Vook, to GoodEReader. “At Vook, we provide cover design, copy editing, marketing support and merchandizing relationships with the distributors—as well as all the communication and management that goes into bringing an important book to readers—and our technology platform makes these pieces easy to manage. We handle the complications; authors and companies can stay focused on creation.” This latest collaboration with the Times is only the latest project that Vook has taken on with a media or publishing outlet. Other partnerships have included content production with Simon & Schuster, The History Channel, Google, and Newsweek Daily Beast. A World of Hurt is currently available for $1.99 from Amazon and iTunes.
Vook, NYT Release Original Content eBook is a post from: E-Reader News |
OverDrive Brings Its eBook Station to BEA
| OverDrive, known for its comprehensive catalog of digital content for libraries, will unveil this week at the BookExpo America event its newest concept in book discovery, the OverDrive Media Station. Designed as a touch-screen kiosk to be placed in retail stores, the Media Station is a fully customizable location to engage readers while still branding the retailer’s interests in the book market. "Publishers and authors are very excited to support retail booksellers to supplement their print book sales by enabling them to sell ebooks to customers in their stores," said Erica Lazzaro, Director of Publisher Relations at OverDrive, in a press release today. "It's one more way to broaden digital content discovery and bring publishers and retailers closer together, which ultimately creates a richer experience for readers." The Media Station will be on display at the OverDrive booth in Javits Center this week, allowing customers and retailers the opportunity to see how consumers can find and interact with books for in-store purchases. The Media Station stands to make a rather large impact on brick-and-mortar bookstores, especially those independent stores who are struggling to keep their customer bases in the era of online book retailing. The in-store stations are designed to be wall-mounted or free standing, and allow customers to browse, read sample chapters, and make point-of-sale purchases. OverDrive will also be speaking at this year’s BEA on the current state of its Big Read initiative, which invited patrons from over 7,500 public libraries to simultaneously access the same title, The Four Corners of the Sky by Michael Malone, in order to track the impact that ebook lending can have on the market for a title.
OverDrive Brings Its eBook Station to BEA is a post from: E-Reader News |
The Big Library Read Facebook Chat with Michael Malone
| Did you miss the Facebook chat with author Michael Malone Thursday evening? We thought we'd share a recap of Mr. Malone's insights with those who were unable to attend.
Some of the longtime fans of Mr. Malone raved about his other titles as well—especially "Handling Sin". If you don't own his other books, you might want to add them to your collection as soon as possible so that those who enjoy "The Four Corners of the Sky" can go on to read his other titles.
Mr. Malone shared with the group that "The Four Corners of the Sky" is loosely based on "The Wizard of Oz". Jack is the elusive wizard. Cuba is the Emerald City. Annie is Dorothy, of course, and her soon-to-be ex-husband is the Cowardly Lion, while her mother is either the Wicked Witch of the West or the Good Witch from the East; Annie is on a quest to find out which. She has her little dog with her, and while searching for her father, runs into the zany Cuban guitar-playing Scarecrow, and eventually falls in love with The Tin Man.
The author also shared insight into the lengthy writing process for this novel. To accurately portray the occupation of the main character, Annie, he did a great deal of research into current naval training and deployment, as well as the history of women pilots. Additionally, it took time to arrange the story clearly and ensure character consistency, due to time shifts and the interlaced structure of the novel.
Finally, he offered advice to aspiring writers: "Only write if you have to! And if you have to, don’t let anything stop you."
Thanks Michael Malone and Sourcebooks for hosting this chat! Keep the conversation going on Twitter as you wrap up "The Four Corners of the Sky" with the hashtag #BigLibraryRead.
Cindy Orr is a Digital Collection Advisor at OverDrive.  |
What Daily Deals Can Mean for Authors, Books
| There is still some confusion among readers and writers about what free can mean for books in terms of ebook pricing. A New York Times article yesterday explained how the algorithms that go into book ranking can be affected in ways that can result in a greater readership and therefore higher sales, even at the risk of losing initial sales. According to the article, offers like the Kindle Daily Deal and the Nook Daily Find offer a means to promote a book, even in large enough outcomes to send it to the bestseller lists. This has proven especially helpful for books who were published years ago, and more importantly, to introduce readers to an author who has a new title coming out soon. But what too many self-published authors fail to capitalize on is the potential for building a devoted fan base. Opportunities to be promoted via mass email from Amazon or Barnes and Noble aren’t usually offered to lesser known authors, but the potential to increase one’s following by sharing content–such as through the popular story sharing site Wattpad or by posting sample chapters on writers’ blogs–can lead to increased sales and readership. Instead, many authors take issue with the basic principle: “You want me to GIVE my book away?!” The New York Times article demonstrated key sales figures on authors like Stephen King and recounted how one of King’s older titles sold 30,000 copies during one day of reduced-price promotion, but that’s not typical of self-published books. What is more common, though, is an exponential increase over typical sales. Other authors have taken issue with the concept of reducing the price of a book as they feel it lessens the recognition that books have value. Rachel Thompson, bestselling author of three titles, including the award-winning Broken Pieces, shared a criticism from an author who argued that one writer discounting his own book means other authors’ works will be ignored. While the fallacy of that statement is ludicrous, that by saying readers will only base their book reading decisions on price rather than content, her post about the critical exchange received a fair amount of support for the angry writer’s view point. It is interesting that the wild fluctuations in price and the short-term promotional discounting have become very popular with ebooks. Without having a price actually printed on a cover, and with the realization that a discounted copy of a digital edition did not involve taking a financial loss on printing and shipping a physical book, authors and publishers are become very creative with their experimentation on ebook pricing.
What Daily Deals Can Mean for Authors, Books is a post from: E-Reader News |
Pinterest Offers Authors Unique Social Media Portal for eBook Discovery
| It’s not just for storing pictures of high heeled shoes or for newly engaged girls to save pictures of how their dream weddings will look. At least, not anymore. Of all the social media tools out there, Pinterest may have actually been the most useful in terms of storing links to found images on the internet. As the name implies, users “pin” pictures that they want to be able to browse later without having to hunt online for them; it’s just a bonus that users can also have followers who can see their different themed boards. While authors and publishers have begun to scratch the surface on how Pinterest can work for books, mostly in the form of pinning interesting book covers, an Italian publisher is now using the phenomenon of pinning to share not only book covers and titles, but the actual ebook samples as well, allowing users to click on the book to enjoy a percentage of the finished product, something akin to Amazon’s Look Inside! feature. RCS Libri, the second largest publishing group in Italy, has a collection of nearly 100 titles on sixteen different Pinterest boards. It is these titles, which go much farther than just displaying a dynamic cover thumbnail, that allows readers to sample the ebook through Pinterest. In a post for Futurebook by Marcello Vena, he explained, “Even independent bloggers have started using our pins in their own boards. We have got the very first preliminary signs already, that this service might potentially provide values not only to readers and authors but also to bloggers, journalists and other stakeholders. It is still to be seen if this will be the actual case. The future will tell.” RCS Libri first exploded onto the possibilities of ebooks by bringing digital publishing to consumers on high-speed trains throughout the country, encouraging passengers to read ebooks while traveling with the impression that these passengers would then purchase the book upon arrival in order to continue reading. For now, RCS has no way of knowing with accuracy how effective a technique Pinterest will prove to be as it translates into sales, but as more and more authors and publishers are finding out, the minimal investment of social media can have far reaching implications.
Pinterest Offers Authors Unique Social Media Portal for eBook Discovery is a post from: E-Reader News |
Reddit: what do people use their Pis for?
| A thread about Raspberry Pi ended up on the front page of Reddit today, and it’s a doozy. There are thousands of people taking part, and some Pi projects mentioned that we’d never even imagined people taking on. Some of them made our little hearts swell with pride. Teaching machines for schools in Ecuador, prosthetic knees in the USA, musical instruments controlled by eye movements for disabled people, solar flare detection, wood engraving, pocket-money analyser – there’s something here for everyone. You guys are brilliant. With your ideas and our tiny computer, we could get together to rule the universe. Bags I get to wear the hat with the diamonds. (Update to add: Incidentally, the guy who says his friend disassembled a Pi and built a better one, so we gave him a job? Big fat liar.) |
Monday, May 27, 2013
Tablet and Touch Based Notebooks Emerge as the Future of Personal Computing
| The entire personal computing segment is in the midst of a tectonic shift with the general preference shifting big time towards mobile and portable devices. The desktop device seems to be on the way out and its place is being taken up by the laptop or notebook brigade. That's not the complete picture though as both in turn run the risk of losing some serious market share to the tablet PC segment, if not being marauded entirely. Analysts with the research firm DisplaySearch predict the mobile PC market could be worth 762.7 million devices in 2017, a steep jump over the 367.6 million devices that were shipped in 2012. No points for guessing, it's the tablet devices that has emerged as the preferred device for personal everyday computing. Another notable shift in consumer preference is the increase in demand for touch enabled devices. The corresponding figures for tablet devices are 579.4 million devices shipped by 2017 while the same for 2013 is like to be around 256.5 million units. That consumers are hooked on to touch based devices can be ascertained from the research finding which claimed shipment of touch enabled notebooks are expected to increase by 48 percent by 2014 in spite for the entire notebook segment as a whole is poised to decline 10 percent within the next 4 years. Also, among the notebook segment, the ultrabook shipment is expected to make up two-third of the touch enabled notebooks to be shipped in 2013. DisplaySearch findings though point out a not too exciting future for Windows 8 claiming the Microsoft operating system won't emerge as the deciding far in procuring a new touch based notebook. Thus far, Windows 8 has had a limited impact on driving touch adoption in notebooks, due to a lack of applications needing touch and the high cost of touch on notebooks,” said Richard Shim, a senior analyst at DisplaySearch. “Form factors aimed at differentiation from standard clamshell notebooks will help to drive consumer adoption of touch-enabled notebook PCs, starting in the second half of 2013.” Tablet and Touch Based Notebooks Emerge as the Future of Personal Computing is a post from: E-Reader News |
Digital Comic Review: Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness
| Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness is a graphic novel prequel to the movie Star Trek into Darkness and, like that film, is set in the J.J. Abrams version of the Star Trek world, in which a young Captain Kirk runs the Enterprise with a crew that will be familiar to fans of the original TV series. That said, you don’t have to be any kind of a Star Trek expert to enjoy this graphic novel. The action is straightforward and the story stands well on its own, although it does seem like a very typical Star Trek story: Kirk, Spock, Sulu, and a redshirt travel to the surface of a planet on the flimsiest of excuses. Supposedly, the planet Phaedus is at the same level of technological development as the ancient Romans, and the Prime Directive of the Starfleet is that their personnel not interfere with the evolution of more primitive civilizations. Kirk and his crew are therefore taking a risk by visiting in their shuttle, but when they arrive, they realize that the interference has already occurred—from a previous captain of the Enterprise, Captain Robert April. April has brought Starfleet technology (from an intergalactic fence) to the planet Phaedus to help fight a civil war in which one group is cruelly dominating the other, but the story rockets forward with plenty of twists and turns from there. The crew members of the Enterprise get themselves into, and out of, a number of tight spots using their usual combination of ingenuity and teamwork, and the story packs in plenty of action as well as a satisfying ending into a relatively short space. The art is clear and easy to follow, and artist David Messina does a nice job of varying panel sizes and styles to produce a cinematic effect without letting the layouts get too confusing. This is a collected edition of a four-issue miniseries that was released earlier this year, and there are several different ways to buy it, with varying prices: The Kindle edition is $11.99, and the comiXology and Nook versions are $9.99. You’ll save two bucks, though, if you buy it as single issues on comiXology: The first issue is free, the second is $1.99, and the third and fourth are $2.99 each. Digital Comic Review: Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness is a post from: E-Reader News |
eBook Review: And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
| Verdict: 5 Stars I wish I could be as good at anything as Khaled Hosseini is at storytelling. The highly anticipated third novel, And The Mountains Echoed (Riverhead Books), which set records for print and digital pre-orders through online retailers, is again set primarily in Afghanistan and again features powerfully impactful characters. And again, as with his other novels, Hosseini’s complex characters and the vivid backdrop of the beguiling region won’t leave the reader any time soon. This title opens with a young son, Abdullah, unknowingly accompanying his widowed father as he takes Abdullah’s young sister, Parwana, to be sold to a wealthy family in Kabul. That one event sets in motion myriad ways that nearly a dozen characters’ lives are interwoven. Uncles, servants, businessmen, even relief workers to the war-torn area have their stories laid open in a seemingly disjointed way, only to have the reader turn the page and discover that what would be strangers are actually crucial background players in one another’s lives. What could be a criticism of Hosseini’s book, the fact that each new chapter opens with only a date and not a name, really only serves to further demonstrate his master storytelling skills. Within a few paragraphs of each new chapter, most of which are being narrated by a new voice, the reader not only understands who is speaking but also how he plays a role in the story, without needing to have it spelled out. And The Mountains Echoed is available now from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iTunes, and more.
eBook Review: And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini is a post from: E-Reader News |
IR filter shenanigans
| There’s a question we’ve been asked very frequently about the camera board. A number of you want to use it for night-time photography, and ask if we can remove the IR filter. Notably, London Zoo are planning to deploy the camera board and Pi in a number of camera traps in Africa, where they’ll be looking for nocturnal animals and for poachers. The problem is, we source the sensor/lens package as a sealed unit from Sunny, so we don’t have the option to remove the infra-red (IR) filter, which is sandwiched inside that unit. This causes trouble for those of you who want to take low-light pictures of wildlife, or for security or astronomy. Over at Reading Hackspace, Gary Fletcher (also attached to London Zoo, and planning to use a Pi camera in his role at the Horniman Museum aquarium for detecting the night time spawning of corals, which he hopes to deploy in Guam in just over a month’s time) mailed us to ask about the filter. Eben didn’t hold out much hope for manual removal of the filter, but suggested that some very careful scalpel work might achieve results. If you attempt this, be aware that it’s not really a supported option, and that if you try you may break your camera board. (Gary, Barnaby and team did break the first board they attempted this with.) Also, be careful around IR sources if you’re playing with IR photography – the human eye doesn’t have a look-away or blink reflex associated with IR, and you can damage your eyes if you stare at a very bright IR light. We think the results are worth it, though. Here’s some instruction and illustration from Reading Hackspace, with special thanks to Barnaby Shearer. First of all, here’s a howto video. This video demonstrates IR pickup: you can watch the tip of a soldering iron change colour as it heats up. Another demonstration, this time of night vision. The scene is illuminated with the IR from a television remote control. Finally, here’s a demonstration of the pattern of light from a Kinect, filmed with the filter-less camera board. The usual warnings apply, but if you do decide to try this yourself, we’d love to see the results. A huge thanks to Gary, Barnaby, and all at Reading Hackspace for being prepared to imperil a camera board, and for all the helpful video! |
US Publishing Industry Might Soon Be Infecting eBook Pirates with Malware
| The Publishing industry in the United States may soon be infecting ebook pirates with Malware. A new report proclaims a dire need for new tools that would allow for the photographing of the pirate using his own system's camera, implanting malware in the their network, or even physically disabling or destroying the hacker's own computer or network. The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property has just released a new report that paints a dreary picture of a very evasive campaign to wage war against people who pirate ebooks and other forms of media. Instead of going through the court system, which costs a copious amount of time, energy, and money, the document advises to go after the root of the problem, the end user. One of the suggestions the document makes is, “If an unauthorized person accesses the information, a range of actions might then occur. For example, the file could be rendered inaccessible and the unauthorized user's computer could be locked down, with instructions on how to contact law enforcement to get the password needed to unlock the account. Such measures do not violate existing laws on the use of the Internet, yet they serve to blunt attacks and stabilize a cyber incident to provide both time and evidence for law enforcement to become involved.” In essence, a pirate commits theft and has to report the theft to the police in order for them to regain access to their computer and likely to pay a fine. A number of countries currently employ similar tactics to cope with the problem of piracy, free speech and political movements. China, Iran, the UAE, Armenia, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Burma, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam all employ cyber warfare tactics against their own people and to exterior forces. It is not so outlandish to think that the US entertainment industry could legalize this, too. After all, SOPA was a precursor to legalize all of this and narrowly avoided being signed into law. For the last decade, book publishers have been doing business with 3rd party companies to stem the tide of ebook piracy on the internet. They basically set up fake and legitimate book torrents and then contact the ISP to serve the user with a legal letter. This process normally run in conjunction with the six-stage warning system, that members of the MPAA employ. It basically zeros in on repeat offenders and a myriad of nasty consequences ensue, depending on what country you live in. Torrents are often used for intelligence gathering by the 3rd party companies and then fed to the publishers. Book publishers are all too aware that their electronic offerings are being downloaded on a massive scale. In the UK, personal file-sharing is being monitored by the major labels and movie studios, but no one ever gets punished for doing so. 'Strike' warnings will often get sent out to repeat offenders, but usually result in no legal action for a private individual. The next time you get the urge to bypass buying an ebook the legitimate way and instead download it from a Torrent website, think about the next stage in the game. Tracking cookies and your computer ID is already known to the publishers and in the not too distinct future, your computer may be hi-jacked, destroyed, or held hostage. US Publishing Industry Might Soon Be Infecting eBook Pirates with Malware is a post from: E-Reader News |
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Digital Manga Adds Independent Comics to eManga Service
| Digital Manga is a company that isn’t afraid to experiment. When they rebooted their eManga site, late last year, they did something very unusual for a comics publisher, let alone a manga publisher: They offered their books as downloads in a variety of different formats, including PDFs, CBZ, and Mobi, so readers could not only download them to the device of their choice but also move them from one mobile device to another. Having expanded their digital options, Digital is now broadening their content offerings as well. They recently added American comics from Heroic Publishing to their lineup, and earlier this month they announced a new indie section that will feature a number of different genres. The most promising title is the steampunk mini-series Boston Metaphysical Society, which follows the adventures of a former Pinkerton detective and a spirit photographer in late-19th-century Boston. (It’s also available as a webcomic.) Other offerings include the sci-fi title Fuerza 7 (available in English and Spanish), and Megabook 1, a free, 212-page comics anthology featuring a mix of genres: Action, horror, sci-fi, and supernatural, among others. It doesn’t look like Digital’s current selection is going to give comiXology Submit too much of a run for their money, in terms of quality or quantity, but it’s early days yet, and there are a few interesting comics up there. It’s worth taking a look, and if you see something you like, the prices are pretty reasonable, with plenty of free content as well. Digital Manga Adds Independent Comics to eManga Service is a post from: E-Reader News |
Kobo ARC Firmware Update Fixes Android UI
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One of the pleasant new updates to the Kobo Arc firmware is the shifting of the Android toolbar from the bottom of the screen, to the very top. In most file manager, games and other apps, most of their UI and button controls are at the bottom of the screen. This resulted in owners accidentally touching the time, WIFI or other notifications and the secondary menu popping up, breaking immersion. Kobo has also enhanced the animations when you hit the app menu and gesture to your library of apps. It is now way quicker to see your next page of apps and Kobo has seemed to have stopped the Crashing Tapestries bug. Finally, we have heard from many people that their discovery bar on the bottom of the screen, which hypes new eBooks and authors did not update properly. You would often see the same books all the time and a small segment never saw updates since they turned it on for the first time. They seemed to have solved this refresh issue too, with the recent firmware update. If you you have not received an update notification on your task bar, you can simply click the settings menu, then about tablet and system updates. Kobo ARC Firmware Update Fixes Android UI is a post from: E-Reader News |
Barnes and Noble Needs to Expand into International Markets
| Barnes and Noble has been seeing declining revenues for the last few quarters and the company according to 24/7 Wall Street, is on the 18th month deathwatch. This article is getting lots of attention, but is a fine example of sensationalist journalism at its finest! It does pose an interesting question though. How can Barnes and Noble turn their hardware and software ecosystem around in the next 18 months? According to 24/7 Wall Street, they said “Barnes and Noble e-reader was destined to struggle from the start. It was launched in October 2009, roughly two years after Amazon.com's Kindle, which was, and has remained, the market leader. Both products were hit by competition from Apple's iPad before the e-reader business even hit its stride. Adoption of tablets is forecast to grow 69.8% in 2013, while e-readers are expected to drop 27%.” The article went on to say “The Nook was thrown a lifeline a year ago, when Microsoft invested $300 million in Barnes & Noble's digital business, but to no avail. It has been downhill since. Sales at the company's Nook segment, which includes both the e-reader and online books, declined by 26% between the third quarter of 2012 and the third quarter of 2013. The Nook's disadvantage may have little to do with its hardware or software and more to do with size of its online audience. It competes against much larger e-commerce sites that have access to hundreds of millions of new readers. While Amazon has more than 130 million visitors a month according to Quantcast, Barnes & Noble has just over 6 million visitors.” Obviously, when it comes to the financial aspect and the investment from Microsoft, this is all true. I think the Nook eBook division is going to be fine in the short-term, but needs to expand their international footprint to do better in the long-term. The Nook brand is only available in the US and UK, you can’t buy the hardware or purchase eBooks outside of these two regions. At a financial call last year, the CEO of Barnes and Noble announced they would expand into eight more countries within a calender year. They have five months to go, and have not entered any new markets. Meanwhile, they invested a substantial amount of money into Nook Press, their indie self-publishing program. Regrettably, this is only available in the US. The United States market is over saturated with e-Readers and unlike smartphones, people don’t upgrade to every new iteration of hardware. People tend to read on perfectly fine two year old devices, and most people who want to buy an e-Reader, already has one. The United Kingdom often is a staging ground to penetrate the rest of Europe, Barnes and Noble has been there for almost a year and have not branched off. It is critically important that B&N begins to sell their Nook Hardware in Germany, Spain, France, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand. They also have to engage publishers who are friendly with them to offer eBooks localized in those markets. Finally, they need to offer their Writing Life platform to the UK and to all other markets and reach distribution deals to offer the books in local bookstores. Barnes and Noble is at a critical juncture in their hardware and eBook ecosystem. When any company starts to see cumulative revenue loses, for many quarters, something needs to be done. Maintaining the status quo and dropping the price on the hardware is something that cannot be sustainable. It is my firm belief that in order for their fortunes to be turned around they need to expand into Europe, Australia and New Zealand. This has been Amazon and Kobo’s winning strategy with their self-publishing and eBook programs, and obviously they deal with the exact same publishers Barnes and Noble does. Barnes and Noble Needs to Expand into International Markets is a post from: E-Reader News |
Good e-Reader – Week in Review
| The Week in Review is a play on words, as we have reviewed a ton of new e-readers during SID Display Week 2013 and got our hands on some tech we never thought we would see. We reviewed over six new e-readers, and as for cool examples of tech, that should be hitting store shelves by the end of summer. If you missed reading our publication for a few days, here is the gist of what we extensively covered. The Sony Prototype e-Reader is the finest example of a company gearing an E Ink display for academics and PDF reading. The resolution on the display is 1200×1600 with 150 PPI. The main attraction is using the active digitizer and interacting with complex PDF documents. You can edit documents by jotting down your own handwritten notes, or even highlight passages to go back to later. The large screen display will simply give you the best PDF experience you have ever had on an e-reader. Our second look at the e-reader takes all of the user emails we got over the week and we went back to the show to get a true hands on. View it HERE. Onyx intends on releasing a new phone this summer that is the first one in the world to use a front-lit E Ink screen. This is the same type of screen tech you would find in your run of the mill e-reader, such as the Kobo Aura HD and Kindle Paperwhite. On a phone, you will get a few weeks of battery life and will be able to load in your own apps. It is certainly a bold new step in the right direction for the future of mobility. The Booklive Reader by Lideo features an older version of E Ink Pearl with a resolution of 600×800 and 16 levels of grey. It has 4 GB of internal memory, but you only have 3 GB of practical use. There is no expandable memory, so you will not be able to load more content in via MicroSD. There is a 800 MHZ processor, which tends to make things fairly speedy. It is certainly not the best e-reader we have ever reviewed, and really has more going against it than going for it. I would give this one a miss, but read the full review and judge for yourself. Trust me, this e-reader does not have the kissing disease, but its namesake is based on the E Ink display. It features a six inch e Ink Pearl Display with a resolution of 1024×768 pixels. It uses IR technology from Neonode instead of the traditional capacitive touchscreen. Underneath the hood is a Freescale i.MX508, 800MHz processor, and 512 MB RAM. It has 4 GB of internal memory that can be expanded further via the Micro SD card. This is a fairly solid reader, and if you are a fan of manga, graphic novels, and ebooks in Japanese, you might want to take a closer look. This model is only available in Japan and is one of the newest devices to hit the market. The Pocketbook Touch Lux features the same HD E Ink Pearl display found on the Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Glo. The exact resolution is 1024×758 and it has a front-lit display, which is optimal for reading in the dark. It also has 256 MB of RAM, 4 GB of internal memory, and a SD card support for up to 32 GB of memory. Battery life should be good up to 7,000 page turns. It also has an audio jack so you can listen to audiobooks and music. This e-reader really gives you nothing special and will likely be overpriced, considering the weak hardware underneath the hood. Still, Pocketbook is very solid about native support for almost every single ebook format currently being used. The Tolino Shine features a six inch E Ink Pearl display with a resolution of 1024×758 pixels. You will be able to garner around seven weeks of battery life and store 2,000 ebooks on it with 4 GB of storage. If you need more memory, you can upgrade it via the Micro SD card. It primarily will read EPUB and PDF files. It does have support for Adobe Digital Editions, so you can read books you purchased from other stores. It will also be running on the Google Android operating system. This e-reader stemmed from a partnership between Thalia , Weltbild, Hugendubel, Bertelsmann Club, and Deutsche Telekom. Mirasol screen technology used to have two display screens, that gave readers a very muted color scheme. This was very evident in the first onslaught of tablets they released a few years ago. Qualcomm went back to the drawing board and developed the second generation and demoed it in a smart watch and a new Android phone. The phone is especially interesting because it has a secondary screen on the back of it and is meant to be paired with the watch. One of the big aspects of SID Display Week was that everyone and their mother was pimping out digital signs. E Ink developed two new technologies that are aimed at grocery stores, billboards, airports, and supermarkets. One piece of the technology is meant to replace paper price tags, the other will work in fridges, freezers, and up to -25 c environments. Peter is starting to do Android app reviews on the Good e-Reader Youtube channel. we started with a new game that just came out, Thor – Lord of Storms. What’s Happening Next Week? The entire Good e-Reader team will be in New York covering Book Expo America and the IDPF. We are proud to be the main media sponsor of IDPF, alongside Publishers Weekly. We will be covering all of the sessions and publishing six to 12 stories a day about the future of publishing, self-publishing, ebooks, libraries, magazines, newspapers, EPUB3, HTML5, big data, and bringing you interviews with Sylvia Day, Otis Chandler, and tons of other industry movers and shakers. I am super excited that everyone will be there and it should be fun! Make Good e-Reader your one stop shop for next week for full coverage. Good e-Reader – Week in Review is a post from: E-Reader News |
