| In early 2013 Yahoo purchased social media website Tumblr, and many people thought it was a bold move. The a community of millions add 75 million daily posts about everything from politics to pets. Few people saw Tumblr as a promotional and marketing tool, but the online service turned Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes by Cory O'Brien into a viral sensation and overnight bestseller. Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology is the book form of O'Brien's site Better Myths, where he retells mythology and other popular tall tales using casual netspeak, as though he were recounting the story to you over Whatsapp or Line. Classic myths like Persephone's journey to the underworld and Abraham sacrificing Isaac get the raucous, rowdy, and irreverent treatment. Many readers thought the table of contents was so compelling, before even getting into the book that the thread got 100,000 replies in under two weeks, catapulting the book into the Amazon's bestseller list. Tumblr user Braro weighed in on his recent acquisition “My copy of this arrived last night and we stayed up late reading it out loud on the couch because it is amazing. Funny, interesting, and written so that you can read it out loud while still sounding like you are just having a conversation or telling a story. Tempted to take it to the pub today to read over with friends.” Obviously the author is a professional and when he found out his book had become a bestseller on Amazon due to a series of Tumblr posts, he exclaimed his jubilation by articulating the following;
How Tumblr Turned a Book Into a Bestseller is a post from: E-Reader News |
Sunday, December 15, 2013
How Tumblr Turned a Book Into a Bestseller
Digital Comics Best-Sellers for December 15, 2013
| ComiXology’s chart gets skewed by a giveaway, Kindle and Nook remain about the same as always, and zombies begin to take over the iBookstore. Here’s our weekly look at the top-selling comics and graphic novels on four different digital platforms. 1. Batman #13 It’s an interesting week at comiXology. The top ten seems to be dominated by older comics and #1 issues (Batman #13 kicks off the Death of the Family storyline), and here’s why: ComiXology has been offering a free comic every day for the past six days, and their top six comics are those free downloads. (The promotion goes on till December 20, so go ahead and click that link.) What’s the top comic people will pay money for? The Walking Dead #118. Here, let’s try this again without the free comics: 1. The Walking Dead #118 Aaah, that’s a little more like it. All this week’s comics from the Big 3, except for that Nightcrawler one, which is a couple of months old… I got nothin’. It’s interesting to compare the two lists and see how much more diverse the top one is; apparently a lot of people will read a Judge Dredd comic if you give it to them for free. 1. Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files: Ghoul Goblin, vol. 1 With no free comics to distort the rankings, the Kindle list looks a lot like the last couple of weeks, although the order of the books keeps changing, so someone is buying them. 1. The Sandman: Overture #1 It’s the same books, in the same order, as in the last few weeks, except that Demon Love Spell is missing. So apparently everyone but shoujo manga fans was buying Nook comics this week, but it’s interesting how they always buy the same comics in the same order. iBooks 1. The Walking Dead #118 Six out of the top ten on iBooks are different versions of The Walking Dead, both single-issue comics, collected editions, and one volume of the Compendium, which is a deluxe collected edition. The fact that volume 1 perennially makes the best-seller list bodes well, of course, because it means new readers are coming in. It’s also true, though, that iBooks users aren’t scrambling to get this week’s new comics; the only title on the chart that came out this week is The Walking Dead #118, although it’s true that the number 11 slot is pre-orders of My Little Pony: Micro Series #10 – Luna, which is out next week. Digital Comics Best-Sellers for December 15, 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News |
eBook Review: King & Maxwell by David Baldacci
| Verdict: 4 Stars There can be a lot of pressure on an author when his characters take center stage for a wider audience. It’s one thing when reader fans become attached to a story line, but it’s something else altogether when television or movie audiences also latch onto the story line and the players. Even before Baldacci put pen to paper (well, you know what I mean) to write this latest book in his popular series about two Washingto, DC private eyes, he faced the challenge that mystery and thriller fans tend to be a hard demographic to impress. Some of the greatest and most well-known authors in the genre, including Baldacci but also names like James Patterson and Patricia Cornwell, routinely maintain three- and four-star average ratings for their books. It tends to feel like the readers have very high expectations, and if they’re not met to the tiniest detail, the readers are quick to point it out. In this case, the author faced a growing audience who fell in love with the June debut television series, and readers quite possibly compared this book to the quite-brief by comparison TV episodes. Personally, I struggled a little bit through the choppy sentences and the attempts at stereotypical PI wit, but overall, the book did not disappoint. What made up for the surprising writing was the eerie and timely plot. We live in an era where citizens trust the government possibly less than ever before, and a story line in which a soldier dies in Afghanistan and later manages to contact his son can grab anyone who watches the evening news. When the son, a mere teenager, hires the two investigators to look into his father’s death, what they learn is fodder for every conspiracy theorist’s dreams. King & Maxwell is available now, although the corresponding television series was cancelled in September.
eBook Review: King & Maxwell by David Baldacci is a post from: E-Reader News |
Digitization of 550-Year-Old Bible Sparks Conversation About Publishing
 Photo of The Morgan Gutenberg Bible Online Sometimes, the real news on the internet happens in the comments’ section, all trolls and grammatically incorrect ugliness aside. A post that shared photos of a digitized Gutenberg Bible gave readers a lot of background information into the historical implications of the book itself, as well as an interesting and educated peek into the evolution of language and print. While much of the conversation is about the Bible itself and the stylistic and grammatical conventions at the time of its writing, a very real concern was raised by the actual digitization, which in this case, is really only professional-quality and non-invasive or destructive photography. The license attributed to the photos of each page indicates, according to one user’s conversation, that it will not be usable online due to terms of use agreements with various websites, including Wikipedia: According to user huskyr, “Although i applaud the effort of putting this publication online in such a nice, interactive way, i’m a bit saddened to see the license underneath the page leading to a Creative Commons Noncommercial (BY-NC-SA) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/). “This means that the images are not usable on, for example, Wikipedia, that only allows CC-BY and CC-BY-SA licenses. Also, there seems to be no easy way to get those images and reuse them, apart from reverse-engineering the application and scraping the files. “Apart from that, adding any license to a work that has been in the public domain (Gutenberg died in 1468) is questionable in terms of copyright law. Reproductions of 2D public domain works (such as this text) are not applicable to renewed copyright law, considering Bridgeman vs Corel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_vs_Corel) and many other similar rulings in other countries.” To which another user, rmk2, added his reply, as well as his understanding of the current law: “If I understood the linked article correctly, nobody knows about the actual effect these rulings have on UK law, where this digitalisation originated. Until there has been a similar case brought before the court, little seems to suggest that this is, indeed, not copyrightable?” The legal battles that have surrounded several different companies’ efforts to preserve rare texts have often included concerns that the text will be widely available for public consumption and manipulation. However, supporters of the digitization of these rare and irreplaceable collections have cited that exact point as the reason to move forward. These pieces of history are cutoff from public, global use, when they could be seen around the world at the click of a mouse.
Digitization of 550-Year-Old Bible Sparks Conversation About Publishing is a post from: E-Reader News |
Notion Ink Adam II Now On Sale in India
| The Notion Ink Adam II has already been launched a few months ago though its only now that the tablet has gone on sale. However, this applies to only India as of now though company sources did mention they intend to reach out other world markets as well with the new Adam. The company didn't reveal which markets they have on their sight or when it is going to be launched though none of it is likely to happen before 2014. Coming to the tablet devices, Adam II is available in both Wi-Fi and 3G versions. They are targeted at the mid-range tablet segment and come with matching specifications. Cost wise, the Wi-Fi only version will set one back by ₹16,499 while the 3G version of the same has been priced ₹18,999. Both the prices in US dollar terms come to $265 and $305, which it must be said is a bit on the higher side. The company is offering a ₹500 and ₹ 1000 discount on the Wi-Fi and 3G versions respectively right now. For that amount of money, the Adam II offers a 1280 X 800 pixel 10 inch display which is rather disappointing. Even 7 inch display that many pixels is considered dismal, something that is further amplified when spread over the larger 10 inch display of the Adam II. Powering the device is a dual core Cortex A9 chip mated to a 1 GB RAM which is another let-down considering the 2012 Nexus 7 costing half as much sports better specs. Also, Notion Ink isn't gunning for the lightest and thinnest tablet spot with the Adam II and is shaped more like the Surface tablet range, what with an aspect ratio where the length has higher precedence over the width. However, the one aspect of the Adam II that is unlike any other tablet currently available in the market is the incorporation of a second monochrome display along the side which displays notifications or other information which otherwise would have required the users to fire up the entire device. However, on the whole,the Adam II can be considered far less impressive than the first gen Adam that had generated a lot of hype and hoopla with the Pixel Qi display and other unique qualities.
Notion Ink Adam II Now On Sale in India is a post from: E-Reader News |
November Comics Sales: The Big Two Slip a Bit
| Diamond Comics Distributors is the exclusive distributor of print comics to specialty comics shops, so their monthly numbers give a pretty good picture of the print comics market. That market is dominated by Marvel and DC, but that dominance slipped a bit this month as both publishers had less than a 30% market share (in terms of dollars). This isn’t the first time that has happened—and in fact, DC had less than a 30% market share for much of 2013, but that’s because it was elbowed out by Marvel, which had almost 40% in March. For the two publishers combined to go below 60% of the market is much more unusual. It’s tempting to attribute this to the strength of Image, the third-largest publisher, which has two solid hits with The Walking Dead and Saga, plus a suite of other well-regarded series. However, Image’s market share has fluctuated quite a bit this year, reaching a high of 9% in April, and it was actually a bit less than that, 8.67%, in November. IDW, the fourth largest publisher, also fluctuates but generally stays in the 6-7% range. Looking down the chart to the other small publishers, though, a pattern seems to emerge: As a group, they are doing better. Dark Horse has been taking a steadily larger share all year, going from 4.55% in January to 6.55% in November. Dynamite, Eaglemoss, and Valiant are each taking a bit more of the pie, and Viz had a bumper month in November, with a 1.19% share, somewhat larger than usual. While we don’t have comparable numbers for digital comics sales, I do track the digital comics best sellers each week, and Image has been a greater presence lately on comiXology (which is the digital distributor that most closely mirrors the direct comics market). Two weeks ago, DC was bumped off the top ten list entirely, as Marvel had six titles and Image had four. Overall, year-to-date comics sales in brick-and-mortar stores are up by 11% and graphic novel sales are up by 5% compared to this time last year. This has been quite consistent over the past year or so: Despite speculation that digital comics sales would hurt brick-and-mortar comics stores, print and digital sales have gone up in tandem. In terms of what’s selling, Batman #25 was the number one monthly comic in November, followed by Harley Quinn #0. Both are from DC. The top-selling Marvel comic was Amazing X-Men #1, in the number three slot. The two publishers each placed five comics on the top ten list, squeezing out Image and the other independents entirely. That means all those incremental sales that are squeezing out Marvel and DC are coming from lower down on the list. November Comics Sales: The Big Two Slip a Bit is a post from: E-Reader News |
Saturday, December 14, 2013
15,000 Penguin eBooks Available for Canadian Libraries via Overdrive
| Overdrive has just signed off on a deal with publishing giant Penguin, to have 15,000 eBook titles made available to Canadian libraries. This is a big move and thousands of libraries and consortiums will be able to finally offer mainstream titles by some of the worlds best authors. The new Penguin titles will be made available under the one copy/one user lending model. Libraries will be able to get backlist titles by notable authors such as; Tom Clancy, Lee Child, Nora Roberts, Charlaine Harris, Ken Follett, Junot Diaz, Khaled Hosseini, John Greene, Harlen Coben, W.E.B. Griffin and many others. Libraries in Canada are getting a hefty dose of Penguin with the 15,000 titles currently available. Just last week Overdrive announced that they have secured over 500 audiobook titles, which finally gives Canadian libraries quality digital editions. 15,000 Penguin eBooks Available for Canadian Libraries via Overdrive is a post from: E-Reader News |
New Zealand iPad Market Projected to Shrink Against Increasing Competition From Cheap Android Tablets
| New research by Frost & Sullivan in New Zealand has revealed tablet devices to be lagging smartphones in the country. It's just 26 percent of the population in New Zealand in the age group 15 to 65 years that currently owns a tablet device, compared to 64 percent owning a smartphone in the same age group. Taken from another perspective, about 42 percent household in the country have a minimum of one tablet owner. However, tablet devices are expected to make it big in the country in the coming years, predicted as it is to reach market penetration of 78 percent by 2018 from a rather modest 44 percent in 2013. While the above should be a sweet piece of news for tablet manufacturers, it does seem to be particularly so for Apple which is expected to see demand for its iPad device shrink in the face of rising competition from the affordable range of Android tablets. Analysts predict the iPad to end up with about 40 percent of the market to itself from the current 59 percent by 2018. As for the pattern of tablet usage, consumers responded they preferred using the device the most during evening at home, for watching TV as well as in bed before going to sleep. However, not many are keen to read newspaper articles on their tablet, with about 62 percent tablet users having read an article in a month's time. However, senior research manager, Australia and New Zealand ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan, Phil Harpur believes the new age mobile connected devices such as smartphones and tablet do have the potential to unsettle print media in about a decades time.
New Zealand iPad Market Projected to Shrink Against Increasing Competition From Cheap Android Tablets is a post from: E-Reader News |
iPad Mini Shipping Times Down to 1 – 3 Days in North America and Asia-Pacific
| Shipments of the iPad Mini with Retina Display has picked up steam just in time as we approach the holidays. Delivery schedules in the US, Canada, Mexico and the Ais-Pacific region have come down to 1 – 3 days. This can be termed a healthy improvement over the 5 – 10 days that the tablet earlier took to deliver in the above mentioned regions. However, the same does not apply to the European region where the latest iPad mini device continues to ship in 3 – 5 business days. Supply issue was the biggest reason that forced Apple to begin selling the latest iPad mini much later than its bigger cousin, the iPad Air. Both the new gen devices were launched on Oct 22 but it wasn't until Nov 22 that the iPad mini with Retina Display went on sale. However, availability was still an issue as it was just a limited number of device that were on offer; so much that the first gen iPad Mini ruled the roost during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Also, it is issues related to supplying the high resolution display that is believed to have led to some supply constraints during the initial stages. Fortunately, all of that is a thing of the past which means good news for Apple fans though just the opposite for Android and Windows tablets that might have thought of making it big in the absence of one of the most sought after tablet device.
iPad Mini Shipping Times Down to 1 – 3 Days in North America and Asia-Pacific is a post from: E-Reader News |
Sony Hires “Brain Trust” to Create a Spider-Man Universe
| It looks like the movies are following in the path of comics, as Sony announced two spinoffs of its Amazing Spider-Man movies and the hiring of a set of writers who will create a shared universe of interlocking stories—the announcement gives their mandate as “to expand the universe for the brand and to develop a continuous tone and thread throughout the films.” The news was first broken to sharp-eyed viewers of the new trailer for Amazing Spider-Man 2, who noticed a hidden URL in a beam of light. That URL led to a website, ElectroArrives.com, which seems to have a single animated image; mouse around, though, and you’ll find a link to the press release. And there’s a countdown, too, although there’s no indication of what it is counting down to—the target date is New Year’s Day. According to the hidden press release, the “franchise brain trust” will include Marc Webb, the director of the first two Amazing Spider-Man movies, producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach, and writers Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, Ed Solomon and Drew Goddard. With Amazing Spider-Man 2 due in theaters next May, Kurtzman, Orci and Pinkner (who collaborated on Fringe) will start work on Amazing Spider-Man 3, which Webb will likely direct as well. The spinoffs will center on longtime Spider-Man foes Venom and the Sinister Six. Venom is a “symbiote” who must bond with another being to exist; he first entered the Marvel universe as a new suit for Spider-Man in Secret Wars #8, then shifted to Eddie Brock as the host in Amazing Spider-Man #300 (which is available on Marvel Unlimited but not comiXology). Venom has taken over several other hosts as well, and ComiXology also has a good assortment of Venom titles. Kurtzman and Orci, who collaborated on Star Trek: Into Darkness and Transformers, will write the Venom movie, and Kurtzman will direct it. The Sinister Six are an alliance of supervillains originally organized by Doctor Octopus in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1. The lineup has changed considerably over the years, with the most recent incarnation appearing in The Superior Foes of Spider-Man. Goddard, whose writing credits include Cloverfield and World War Z as well as Cabin in the Woods, which he also directed, has just been tapped as the showrunner and executive producer of the Netflix Daredevil series. He will also write and direct the first episode. As Sean O’Connell of Cinema Blend points out, that raises the possibility of yet another expansion of the Spider-Man universe: A Spidey-Daredevil crossover. frameborder="0" allowfullscreen> Sony Hires “Brain Trust” to Create a Spider-Man Universe is a post from: E-Reader News |
2013′s Kindle Fire HD and HDX Review
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With all of our new device reviews and more to come, it’s shaping up to be a very merry digital holiday season! There’s still time to curl up with an eBook on a tablet in front of your video fireplace with a robotic dog at your feet. (All right, I still prefer real fireplaces and real dogs, even if both could be more dangerous than their digital doppelgangers. I’m still a fan of quality tablets to use OverDrive Media Console with, however.)
Where the real changes lie are in Amazon's new flagship tablet models, the Kindle Fire HDX 7-inch and 8.9-inch, starting at $229 and $379, respectively. Both screen sizes come in 16, 32, and 64 GB models and have a speedy quad-core 2.2 GHz processor (a step up from the dual-core 1.5GHz processor of the normal Kindle Fire HD models), which makes them perfect for using OverDrive's streaming video service! eBook text looks clear and sharp on both the 7-inch model's 1920 x 1200 (323 ppi) screen, as well as the 8.9-inch model's 2560 x 1600 (339 ppi) screen. The resolution is comparable to both the previously-reviewed Nexus 7 (2013 Edition) and the iPad Mini with Retina display. Both Kindle Fire HDX tablets were extremely light, yet still felt sturdy. The only thing that concerned me was plugging in the micro USB cable to charge them. The cable tilts slightly upward instead of lying parallel to the tablet, making me somewhat worried that if I accidentally dropped something on top of it, the metal part of the cable might break off inside of the device (not that it ever happened to me with a video camera once.…). Both sizes of the Kindle Fire HDX have a front-facing HD camera and microphone, the latter of which comes in handy for Amazon's latest customer service feature that we were eager to try out: Mayday! Amazon's brand-new "Mayday" button, designed for instant help on the Kindle Fire HDX from a real human being via video, was extremely impressive. Pressing it indicated that we were in the queue waiting for a technician to become available, but the response time afterward was almost immediate (granted, we tried this before the start of the holiday season). When the video of the live technician popped up on the lower part of the screen, it was almost shocking. We asked, "Can you see us?" He explained that he could not see us, but he could hear us, and could see and control anything on the screen of the Kindle Fire HDX. We explained that we just wanted to see how it worked, and he kindly provided a demo of swiping through menus, opening an eBook, and circling various items on the screen. We were quite impressed. The "Mayday" button would be a great tool for library staff members to suggest to patrons who may be having trouble with a Kindle Fire HDX, especially if they are new to the world of tablets. This holiday season, thanks to Amazon's new Kindle Fire devices, the tablet world may get a lot of new users!
Jenny Norton is a Support Services Specialist at OverDrive.
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We reviewed the Kindle Fire HD Kindle Owners Spend More Money than Amazon Shoppers
| Amazon has a habit of every single year touting the success of the Kindle franchise at the end of December. They do this to build continued brand awareness and to keep themselves in the headlines. The company never divulges exact sales figures, so there is really no factual data to backup their wiley claims. Some new data has just been produced that paints the picture of “Amazon doesn’t care about hardware sales, its about how much Kindle owners spend.” Consumer Intelligence Research Partners has issued a report based on a survey done with over 300 Amazon shoppers. It was conducted during September, October and November to get an accurate portrayal of what the standard buying patterns are of Amazons average customer. Based on its research and analysis, CIRP estimates that Kindle owners spend $1,233 per year on Amazon compared to $790 per year for Amazon shoppers who don’t own one of the company's e-readers or tablets. Amazon Kindle owners are not buying more at once, but they are buying more frequently. e-Reader users tend to buy more eBooks, whereas tablet owners are purchasing more apps, audiobooks and magazines. It is estimated that in the US there is a grant total of 20.5 million Kindle e-readers and Fire tablets are being used day to day in the US. The research does not talk about usage in other countries, but the only other markets of note is the UK, Japan, and Canada. Kindle Owners Spend More Money than Amazon Shoppers is a post from: E-Reader News |
This Years Best Screenplays Now Available in eBook Format
| This year is almost over and a number of cinematic films are all vying for contention for various award ceremonies, culminating with the Oscars. In order to build demand and awareness for the films in contention the major studios have digitized the scripts in PDF format. The following scripts are free downloads and be viewed online or via your favorite PDF Reader. They are being used in many schools right now and many movie buffs are also checking them out. If you are feeling ambitious you can use a 3rd party program like Calibre to convert these to MOBI or EPUB. All Is Lost , August: Osage County , Before Midnight , The Blue Umbrella , The Butler Enough Said , Frozen , Fruitvale Station , Gravity , Kill Your Darlings , Lone Survivor Monsters University , Nebraska , Philomena , The Place Beyond the Pines Prisoners , Rush , Saving Mr. Banks , The Spectacular Now , Spring Breakers 12 Years a Slave , The Way Way Back and Wolf of Wall Street This Years Best Screenplays Now Available in eBook Format is a post from: E-Reader News |
Friday, December 13, 2013
Amazon Kindle China Celebrates 1 Year Anniversary
| Amazon Kindle China has officially been open for one full year and currently a number of e-readers and eBooks are being sold. Today, we look at some of the progress that is being made and how the content distribution system has evolved since the original launch. When Amazon China first opened their doors to sell digital books, the company had a paltry 2,000 titles available. The ecosystem has grown and there is close to 6,200 available right now from over 300 partner publishing house. There is also a number of digital only content starting to come out on a monthly basis. For instance, collections of selected Q&As on Quora-like Chinese site Zhihu.com, travel guides on travel sharing site Qyer.com, and essays on news and opinion site Huxiu.com are available to purchase. The average title in the store is around .80 US. The Amazon bookstore has been available in China since December 2012, but customers did not have the ability to buy the e-readers or tablets. People who wanted the dedicated hardware had to look at the grey market or download the official app on any Android or iOS device. When June 2013 rolled around, Amazon decided to get in the hardware game launched the Paperwhite for 849 yuan ($138), the Kindle Fire priced at 1499 yuan ($244) for the 16GB edition and 1799 yuan ($293) for 32GB. According to Technode, ”Online reading and, more recently, mobile reading have been widely consumed in China. The China mobile reading market in 2012 was about RMB 5.6 billion ($900-ish million), with a 30% growth, Amazon China introduced citing research results from Imedia Research Group. Of the 290 million Chinese mobile reading users, 67% read e-books or online literature, 59% read online news and 29% read blogs or articles on online forums. Amazon China found that the top two categories Chinese Kindle book readers purchased are literature and economics books.” Amazon Kindle China Celebrates 1 Year Anniversary is a post from: E-Reader News |
HP Launches Windows 8.1 Based Educational Hub Titled ‘The Buzz’
| Here is some good news for those who might have been facing trouble getting started with Windows 8. HP has come up with an educational hub christened ‘The Buzz’ that is aimed at deciphering the intricacies of the latest iteration of Windows. The new site is designed to act as a single window mode of delivering all that one needs to have a low down of Windows 8 and all that the new operating system has to deliver. To make thing even more simple and easy to navigate, the site has been categorized into four sections: New Features, The Experience, Available Apps, and Tips & Tools. “The site is presented in a free-flowing layout reminiscent of the Live Tiles interface in Windows 8 with the articles sort of jumbled up, so you’ll have to check off categories in a filtering box for the content you’d like to see,” mentioned PCmag. Among the things that make up the educations hub are how-to videos, articles written in a free flowing manner, as well as ways to make the most out of the new advanced search feature that Windows 8.1 boasts of. However, what has also to be kept in mind is that the entire ‘Buzz’ concept has been an HP endeavor. The reasons are all too obvious too as many of what has been mentioned in ‘The Buzz’ is closely related with HP’s own products based on the latest version of Windows. Needless to say all of this is aimed at generating some buzz around HP's own product base though there is no stopping others wishing to brush up their knowledge of Windows 8.1 from having a peek of HP's ‘The Buzz’.
HP Launches Windows 8.1 Based Educational Hub Titled ‘The Buzz’ is a post from: E-Reader News |
Book Riot Readers Select Their Favorite Books of 2013
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The breakdown of the top twenty-four reader favorites and the number of votes each title received is as follows: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (73 votes) It is unfortunate the none of the nominees on this list is a self-published title, but as this list was reader-generated, it may be a telling sign of both how consumers perceive self-publishing, as well as how indie authors still have their work cut out for them in terms of viable promotion opportunities to help readers know about their work. After all, readers can’t vote for books if they never discover them. The list of all books that received votes is posted on the Book Riot website, but as the company posed to its readers, the question remains: is this list accurate, and are your favorites on it? What books were overlooked this year?
Book Riot Readers Select Their Favorite Books of 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Turkey Enacts Law to Lower VAT on eBooks
| One of the initial debates about the recent growth of digital publishing was in the way that ebooks were viewed by consumers and by the publishing industry. Some governments, like Germany’s, initially went so far as to treat ebooks as though they were two separate entities, both a book and a piece of software. This issue caused major concern in Germany where the tax structure created havoc for booksellers and consumers alike. The government treated ebooks as though they were books, meaning they feel victim to the national law that stated all books had to be sold at an identical price throughout the country, but yet ebooks were also treated as software downloads, and therefore taxes at 19% instead of the 7% tax rate for print books. Obviously, this kept digital reading from taking off initially, as consumers had to pay the same price for the ebook that they would have paid for the print, while paying more than double the tax rate. Although that issue has largely been resolved as digital publishing continues to take a stronghold in the book economy, Turkey only this month became one of the more recent companies to finalize legislation lower its VAT tax percentage rate from eighteen percent to only eight percent. According to a statement from IPA Secretary General Jens Bammel, he congratulated Turkey for "joining the small but growing number of states that have recognised that that both paper and digital books should have the same VAT rate. Otherwise, government is interfering with the reader’s choice to move to digital books." The new tax rate went into effect earlier this month, and hopefully other markets (including states in the US who still tax books) will see the benefits of making book purchasing–either in print or in ebook–a more lucrative choice for consumers.
Turkey Enacts Law to Lower VAT on eBooks is a post from: E-Reader News |
FanFiction Gets a Boost from New Publisher’s Kickstarter Campaign
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Sites like Amazon’s Kindle Worlds have actually allowed authors to earn royalties on their fan fiction by letting them publish and sell works based on pre-approved books, television shows, or movies. In this instance, pre-approved refers to the licensing and cooperation of the rights’ holder of the original content that sparked the fan fiction. “We write it because we love these vampires, Doctor Who companions, or demon hunters so much that we can’t stand not knowing what happened in those missing scenes,” explained The Naughty List anthology author McCrary Golden, “or giving them the chance to make a different or better choice. We want them to have that last love scene, to redeem themselves, to not get killed off. These characters make our lives better–even if it’s just for a short time. Fanfic, to me, just returns the favor.” As part of GalleyCat’s efforts to promote crowdfunding campaigns that pertain to books and publishing, the industry site has posted news of a new publisher who is at work on a Kickstarter campaign to get off the ground. This publisher, Big Bang Press, is dedicated to giving fan fiction authors a platform to publish and sell their work.
FanFiction Gets a Boost from New Publisher’s Kickstarter Campaign is a post from: E-Reader News |
Jack the (DVD) Ripper
| The shelves in my living room are groaning under the weight of DVD boxed sets – and I just can’t bring myself to sit down and rip them all. All that waiting around! And it’s impossible to remember that you’re going to have to swap discs to and from a drive every hour or so. So the pile of boxed sets grows, and grows, and grows, and soon I will have enough be able to start building a new house to keep the DVDs in out of the packaging. So I was extremely pleased to be introduced to Jack the (DVD) Ripper, a 3d printed, Raspberry Pi-powered device that pulls a DVD from a stack, drops it into a drive, and, when the drive opens after ripping is finished, picks it up again and puts it in another pile. The whole system runs autonomously, so you can go and get on with whatever it is you do when you aren’t ripping DVDs. Andy Ayre, who built the project, has made a five-part tutorial available, with an introduction and parts list, mechanics, electronics, software and troubleshooting tips. Datasheets, documentation, software and everything else you’ll need are available on GitHub. We love it – you get to save a ton of time and have some fun with 3d printing and motors, all at once. |
Penguin eBooks are now available for Canadian Libraries
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 OverDrive is excited to announce that more than 15,000 Penguin Group (USA) eBooks are now live and available for purchase by Canadian libraries. The catalog is available in OverDrive Marketplace for Canadian public and college libraries, including consortia, under the one copy/one user lending model for a one-year term. The Penguin Group (USA) catalog features titles from numerous best-selling authors, including Tom Clancy, Lee Child, Nora Roberts, Charlaine Harris, Ken Follett, Junot Diaz, Khaled Hosseini, John Greene, Harlen Coben, W.E.B. Griffin and many others. The OverDrive Collection Development team has created special collections for easy shopping. Click here to view our list of recommended titles. Individual public libraries and consortia can shop the Penguin eBook catalog now on the Marketplace home page (if catalogs are merged), or the “Metered Access” section in OverDrive Marketplace. You can also search for the content in Basic or Advanced Search under Publisher Account: Penguin Group (USA), Inc. OverDrive Collection Development Specialists are also available to assist you with the addition of Penguin titles to your catalog; email collectionteam@overdrive.com for more information.
Rachel Somerville is a Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive.
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