| Dark Horse is bidding a fond farewell to the Star Wars universe. The comic book publisher has printed hundreds of comics and is holding a fire sale. For the rest of 2014, all Dark Horse Star Wars comics are 50% off, and you can buy every single comic — 28,353 pages — for $300, or 80% savings. In early 2015 the rights to the Star Wars comic book series will be transferred to Disney, and they will publish the comics in-house. It remains to be seen what exactly will happen to the copyright that Dark Horse has over the comics it has produced over the years, but it may be a moot point, since they aren’t considered canon anymore. “As the end of an era closes, we say a fond farewell to Star Wars. The Wookiees will be missed, and bounty hunters will be sad. But take heart, young Jedi, for in these last few days, you can seal in carbonite the entire Dark Horse Digital library of Star Wars,” the publisher said in a press release. “Get every comic, every panel, and every battle in perfect digital format in your collection. Access via the Cloud City whenever you want. Many of these comics may never be in print again, and this is your chance to get over twenty years of Star Wars comics history at a once-in-a-lifetime price.” There are a number of notable comics to be purchased via the Dark Horse app for Android, iOS and a number of other platforms. Legacy and Old Republic come to mind as two of the series that lasted the longest. The series that was the most compelling to me was Crimson Empire, a 22 comic adventure. Dark Horse Bids Farewell to Star Wars is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Dark Horse Bids Farewell to Star Wars
South Korean e-Book Market to Make Huge Gains in 2015
| The South Korean e-Book market is one of the ten largest in the world. The overall book market is currently worth about $3.2 billion in revenue per year, and that amount is expected to grow 30% over the next few years. e-Book sales have steadily been climbing with $178 million in sales in 2012 and over 228 million in 2013. South Korea's mobile phone penetration rate topped 100% in 2010, meaning that there are more phones than people in use in the country. The rate was 111% as of 2013, according to data provided by the International Telecommunication Union. This gives the online bookstores tremendous reach and digital books are suddenly finding a more captivated audience than ever before. The Korean e-Book market is basically exploding right now, and keenly aware of this fact is the local brick and motor bookstores. In 1999, there were around 5,000 bookstores in Korea, today, there are barely 1,500 nationwide. The bigger chains such as Kyobo, Aladdin, Youngpoong, Yes24 and Bandi & Luni's have all successfully transitioned into selling e-Books. YES24 is likely the largest player in the market and controls 42% of all e-Book sales. On average, their nine million registered users purchase around 100,000 titles each day. The company also also launched their own dedicated e-readers, the Crema Touch and Crema Shine. They retail from $120 and $150 respectively. To-date, more than 50,000 units of the e-readers have been sold. Meanwhile, the largest bookstore in Korean, Kyobo started an e-Book subscription service in early 2013. It is called “Sam” and readers can sign up for a one-year membership and borrow five e-books for a monthly fee of 15,000 won ($13.82). Kyobo also offers a bundled package of e-book rentals and its own e-book reader, luring potential bookworms with a discount. "The reason why we offer this book service at such a low price is because Sam aims to increase the reading population in Korea. Instead of possessing books permanently, readers can have downloaded books saved in the device for six months and download more afterwards. The core concept of our service views books as part of consuming," said Jin Young-gyun of the Kyobo Book Center PR department. One of the barriers that prevents the digital market from truly exploding, is primarily due to pricing regulations. Brick and Motor stores can only give a 15% discount on print or e-Books. This has given rise to the gifting culture, where you are normally given a mug, coupon or gift voucher. This plays nicely into the hands of Ridibooks, who are trying to position themselves into one of the big boys. The startup was founded in 2009 and recently raised 8 million in series B funding. They boast two million users, while more than 32 million e-books have been downloaded using its platform. One of the edges that Ridibooks has is that they don’t offer any print books, so e-Books doesn’t cannibalize their own sales like the brick and motor stores do. South Korean e-Book Market to Make Huge Gains in 2015 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Friday, December 26, 2014
Millions of People Try Amazon Prime Shipping for the First Time
| Amazon Prime currently has 35 million members in the US and 50 million worldwide. There are many benefits to the $99 per year subscription, each as a free eBook every month, access to Amazon Instant Video and Prime music. Lots of people buy Prime for this very reason, you can simply get a lot more value for your Kindle Fire. Loyal Amazon shoppers are quite aware that you get free two day shipping if you are a Prime member, but many Kindle owners just buy e-Books. This year though, the number of Prime members who took advantage of the free shipping for the first time were staggering. More than 10 million new members worldwide tried Prime for the first time. Amazon customers also benefited from low prices this season, including more than 25,000 Lightning Deals. "We are excited to welcome more than ten million new members to Amazon Prime this holiday season, who benefited from unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on their holiday gifts. Prime members can also borrow more than 700,000 books, listen to one million songs and hundreds of playlists, save unlimited photos and watch tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes including the Golden Globe nominated show from Amazon Studios, Transparent," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "We are working hard to make Prime even better and expanding the recently launched Prime Now to additional cities in 2015." Millions of People Try Amazon Prime Shipping for the First Time is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Digital Newspapers Grows 15% in Australia during 2014
| Australians have begun to adopt digital newspapers in record numbers as advertising campaigns from the leading national publications appear to be paying off. In 2014 digital has grown over 15% with eight million people on average consuming the news on a monthly basis. The Sydney Morning Herald was Australia's most-read newspaper across print and digital with 5.6 million readers, followed by The Daily Telegraph's 4.4 million, The Herald Sun (4.3 million), The Age and The Courier-Mail (both with about 3.3 million). Many of the top papers offer digital only subscriptions to their content, which has a price of about $3.00 a week on average. They also have various tiers where you can combine digital with the print weekend edition and also the most common level that gives you the paper every single day + full access to digital. The average person tends to read the news on their computer, but traction is starting to mount for dedicated apps for Android and iOS. In a recent report, 221,000 Australians aged reported using the Sydney Morning Herald's app, while 199,000 used The Age's app. Apps produced by The Australian, the Herald Sun and the Daily/Sunday Telegraph were also popular with 95,000 people using it daily. Australian publishers are also turning to dedicated newspaper ecosystems like PressReader, which has all of the daily editions and national papers. One of the big advantages is being able to get their content distributed properly to folks living or traveling abroad. Digital Newspapers Grows 15% in Australia during 2014 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Adafruit capacitive Christmas shenanigans
| I got up late today; it’s Boxing day. And there in my inbox was a festive message from our friends in New York, PT and LadyAda, who found themselves at a loose end in the Adafruit factory on Christmas Day and took some video of a beta test they did for a new Raspberry Pi HAT (coming soon to a store near you!) Merry Christmas from all of us at Pi Towers to everybody reading – we hope your Christmas holiday is as much fun as ours is this year! A quick housekeeping note: we are not committing to the usual blog post per day this week because we’re supposed to be taking a break, but if we get bored with hanging out with our families, you’ll find something here, so keep checking. I’m off to make a sandwich out of leftovers. |
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Global Audiobook Trends for 2015
| In 2007 a paltry 3,073 audiobook titles were produced and this figure rose exponentially to over 12,000 published in 2011. In 2013 many industry experts proclaimed that over 20,000 audiobooks were now available and in 2014 over 35,000 were released by major publishers and companies like Audible. The global audiobook industry is currently worth 2.6 billion dollars and part of the reason why we have seen a dramatic increase in profitability is due to digital. In a recent New York Times piece, they said “In the first eight months of 2014, sales were up 28% over the same period last year, far outstripping the growth of e-books, which rose 6%" One of the biggest markets for audiobooks in the world, is not the US or UK but Germany. In a recent annual survey conducted by the Allensbach Institute said that Germans consume more audiobooks than e-books. In the last twelve months, close to five million Germans have purchased an audiobook, which accounts for 7% of the overall population. This is one of the hottest segments currently operating and ironically gets the least amount of attention. Digital audiobooks are finally starting to find their stride thanks to libraries embracing them in a big way. There are a number of major players providing audio services to libraries, 3M Cloud Library, Baker & Taylor, Hoopla and Overdrive. For the most part, these are the exact same companies that provide the libraries e-Book portfolio. In the US, 95% of all libraries have a digital collection and audio content is starting to play a more central role. Audiobooks actually works fairly differently than e-Books do, on a business level. Many of the top distributors lean on 3rd parties for a full catalog of content. 3M and Baker and Taylor both get their audio editions from Findaway World, which is current market leader in production. Findaway has a catalog of over 50,000 titles and maintains production studios, narrators and crew in New York. Overdrive has their own internal solution, where they approach publishers directly and don't do business with companies such as Audible or Findaway World. Tom Mercer, Marketing Manager of 3M Cloud Library said "we see a tremendous opportunity to grow in the Audio space in 2015. Right now we're two weeks into the "real world" of Audio, but customers really seem to like our solution. Our initial Beta feedback from very positive." Hoopla is an audiobook solution for libraries that floats under the radar, but are quickly making a name for themselves. The company has a catalog of 13,000 titles with 1,000 added each month. Hoopla deals with over 100 libraries in the US and charges no licensing fees with setting up the system, which is quite appealing to the average library. How does Hoopla make money? The company has employed the Pay Per Use model, which only charges the library when a specific title is checked out by a patron. The San Francisco Public Library said they are are predicting that in 2015 more companies will embrace the Hoopla model, which will lower costs for libraries and get more content in-front of the patrons. How well are the publishers doing in the audiobook sector? Cheryl Herman, marketing director for Penguin Random House's Books on Tape & Listening Library said. "Our library sales for digital audio are up nearly 35% over 2014, we're offering more and more titles on audio, and we're not alone in that. There are also more players entering the market, and more titles overall being published than ever before." Audible is the undisputed market leader in audiobook production and distribution. Matthew Thornton the Director of Communications at Audible said “Audible content includes over 180,000 audiobooks and other spoken-word programming from leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers, and business information providers. Non-audiobook content includes lectures, meditations, language lessons, comedy and periodicals.” Audible has added 40,000 titles their store in 2014, a very slight increase versus 2013. In both 2013 and 2014, Audible Studios and ACX productions account for just about half of all titles added to the Audible storefront. Audible has seen a massive amount of success by branching out in international markets, where their is more synergy between Kindle e-readers and tablets. Matthew proudly exclaimed “Audible now operates thirteen global outlets including Audible.co.uk in London, Audible.de in Berlin, Audible.fr in Paris and Audible.com.au in Sydney.” One of the big reasons why Audible adds so much content to their portfolio on a yearly basis is due to the Amazon Creation Exchange. Publishers and authors who own unused audiobook rights can post them on ACX, along with narration preferences (e.g., narrator's gender, accents, voice types). Audio publishers and audio studios—as well as individual narrators with home studios—can search for titles that interest them and then audition to turn those rights into audiobooks. Rights holders can hire a narrator or producer, or create entrepreneurial partnerships with shared royalty structures that allow audiobooks to be produced without upfront costs. Alternatively, existing audio publishers can simply use ACX to discover audio rights to produce on their own. Production Costs and Star Power Audiobook prices are often drastically inflated and is a financial barrier for mainstream adoption. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green costs $4.99 for the Kindle edition, but the audiobook costs $17.99. Max Brooks seminal World War Z – The Oral History of the Zombie Wars costs $9.99 for the Kindle edition, but the audiobook will set you back $28.00. Why are audiobooks so overpriced compared to e-Books and print? It comes down to billable hours. It comes down to the studio costs, which the publishers call cost per finished hour. Each audiobook is on average around 12 hours, which costs on average $300 and $400 an hour. They also have to account for multiple takes and editing. The finished product after its all said and done is normally $5,000 to $6,000 to make the audiobbook. Some companies ride on the back of star power to draw attention to the digital edition and use them for marketing purposes. The aforementioned World War Z hired 21 different voice actors, such as Simon Pegg, Common and Martin Scorsese. Even hiring just one famous person to narrate the book, drives the production costs up exponentially. The average cost is now $1000 to $1500 per book hour and the final product would cost over $17,000. Matthew Thornton explained a bit on how Audible embraces star power. “One of the ways we’ve worked to improve the overall customer experience of listening to audiobooks is in elevating the quality of audiobook performance—embracing A-List celebrities (among those who've recorded for Audible are Colin Firth, Dustin Hoffman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Kate Winslet and Susan Sarandon) as well as up-and-coming young actors at Juilliard, Yale, Stella Adler and other acting schools where Audible offers narration workshops. We’ve had great success with celebrity-narrated projects like the Gyllenhaal-narrated The Great Gatsby, Ben Stiller performing The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. As importantly, high-profile narrators raise the visibility of these terrific listening experiences—something we liken to "theater in your ear"—and raise the visibility of this burgeoning art form.” Major Publishes and companies that are heavily invested in audiobooks really have to look at what titles are best suited to make the transition. Any of the perennial bestsellers and books slatted to be made into a major motion picture are often the first ones slatted for production. They basically have to insure with the other titles can be money earners and not loss leaders. Newspapers Embrace Audio Audio these days is not only reserved for fiction and non-fiction books, but newspaper companies have been embracing this model as well. The Guardian newspaper forged a relationship with Audible. Every week the Guardian Audio Edition will hit Audible, and give you a feel for the UK's book scene and new book releases. Audible will also sponsor the Guardian Books homepage, its weekly books podcast, and its books review pages, with co-branded advertising across the newspaper's website and print edition. One of the big trends in journalism these days has been audio editions of their top stories. The Guardian started do this early and regularly garners 17 to 30 thousand listens for each audio edition they post. The New York Times and New Yorker also do select audio and make it available on their websites, but also Audible. Good e-Reader has also experimented with this new way to tell stories, and goes deeper into the issues. In one of our recent stories, we had over 5,000 listens within two days. Vancouver based PressReader is also heavily involved with the audio capabilities of newspapers. Every single one of their 3,000 newspapers have text to speech functionality, they will read any story you want aloud. This makes sense for people who can no longer read the tangible paper, without a magnifying glass or have other vision problems. Whats Next? Listening to audiobooks has never been easier. Libraries all over the world now offer the service and Audible distributes their entire catalog of titles not only through their own app and Kindle devices, but also sources everything to iTunes. How can the industry get customers to listen to more digital editions? The largest bookseller in the US, Barnes and Noble got into audiobooks in late November 2014 is hoping to capitalize on the trend and advertise them in their entire chain of retail stores. Kashif Zafar, Vice President of US Digital Content at NOOK Media told Good e-Reader exclusively that his company is putting a company wide focus on audio titles and this is a huge priority for them. In order to get customers invested in the Nook ecosystem they are promoting the fact they have 50,000 audiobooks from major publishers and every week there will be listing five free audiobooks that new users can browse and download two for free. There is no signup required or credit card needed for the account in order to take advantage of this promotion. The titles were exclusively vetted to span multiple genres and picked especially for the overall quality of the narration. During the first week the following titles will be available; Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, Ender's Game (Ender Quintet #1) by Orson Scott Card, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Heist (Fox and O'Hare Series #1) by Janet Evanovich and Seabiscuit by Lauren Hillenbrand. Will the serious e-Book reader embrace audiobooks the same way they switched from print to digital? It doesn’t look too likely, recently we ran a poll that asked 384 people if they listed to them. 33% have never listened to an audiobook before and 23% said they at least tried, but gave up. A paltry 14% said they listen to audiobooks all the time, which is the main challenge the publishing industry is facing. Global Audiobook Trends for 2015 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Weekly eHighlights – Video edition
| December has been an exciting month for streaming video. OverDrive now offers content from Warner Bros. & MGM! These titles are available under a transactional, Cost Per Circ (CPC) access model. This model enables simultaneous use and allows libraries to budget based on checkouts, which is a form of patron-driven acquisition. You can view the full MGM & Warner Bros. catalogs in Marketplace now. We've also added a plethora of excellent children's television shows, star-studded blockbusters, and award-winning documentaries. Check out a sample of the best titles below and click here for the full Marketplace list. Feature Films Child of God | Cinedigm – Drama, Thriller Color Me Kubrick | Magnolia Pictures – Comedy Everything is Illuminated | Warner Bros. – Comedy, Drama Last Tango in Paris | MGM – Drama The Miracle Worker | MGM – Drama Natural Born Killers | Warner Bros. – Thriller Romulus, My Father | Magnolia Pictures – Drama Trust | Millennium Entertainment – Drama Television A Touch of Frost | MPI Media Group – Crime, British Television Braceface | Nelvana – Cartoon, Children's television Franklin | Nelvana – Cartoon, Children's television Max & Ruby | Nelvana – Cartoon, Children's television Rolie Polie Olie | Nelvana – Cartoon, Children's television Documentary & Instructional Alaska: Spirit of the Wild | Echelon Studios – Documentary, Nature Gonzo | Magnolia Pictures – Documentary, Biography Man on Wire | Magnolia Pictures – Documentary Click here for the full Marketplace list. Please note that title availability may vary by geographic location and platform. Michelle Ross is a Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive. |
The New York Times Creates New European Hub in England
| The New York Times is expanding into the United Kingdom with the creation of their new central office in London. They will be using this new headquarters as a launching point for all of their coverage across the continent. The Times will be hiring over 100 personal to cover news stories all over Europe. They will be closing down their Paris office within the next few months and transferring all of their staff to the UK. Additionally, they intend on hiring over one hundred new people. According to a Property Week article, the paper's owners have signed a deal for an entire 9,000 sq ft building in Bloomsbury. The Times right now has no intention to create a dedicated UK daily, but instead will use this new location as a home base to get a better handle on European news. In retrospect, the Guardian also has plans for further expansion into New York. They initially moved into a small office area in 2011 and will be hiring more news hounds in 2015. UK residents who want to get access to the New York Times can use their official app for iOS or Android to read the paper. If you want to read the replica edition, which has local adverts and mirrors the print edition, you can check it out on PressReader.
The New York Times Creates New European Hub in England is a post from: Good e-Reader |
10 Free Kindle eBooks for Christmas, Plus Kindle eBook Deals
| Amazon always offers lots of deals on ebooks and other digital content this time of year to fill up new Kindle ereaders and Fire tablets with a bunch of good reading material and content to better enjoy your new devices. In fact Amazon’s Gold Box Deal of the Day offers up to 50% off Kindle […] |
Merry Christmas! Got a new Pi? Read on!
| If you’re here because you got a Raspberry Pi for Christmas, then Happy Christmas – and welcome to the Raspberry Pi family! If you’re just here for fun, then Happy Christmas too! The Raspberry Pi is a computer that you can use for all sort of brilliant and useful things, from learning to program, to making robots, to Tweeting when birds visit a nesting box, to taking pictures from the stratosphere. Here are some tips on setting up and using your Raspberry Pi. 1. Make sure your software is up to dateThe most important thing is to make sure that you have the latest version of our New Out Of Box Software (NOOBS). You can check this by starting your Raspberry Pi – here’s Carrie Anne to tell you more. If you don’t have the latest version (1.3.11) we recommend that you go here to get the latest version and follow the instructions (it’s really easy – just download & unzip it and then drag and drop onto a formatted SD card). 2. Setting upFull set up instructions and lots of other help are in our Help section. If you have any issues setting up your Raspberry Pi that isn’t answered in the Help section then please visit our forums. Our forum members are a very friendly bunch and will help you with any problems. The FAQ also has lots of tips and useful information PowerDo make sure that you have a good quality power supply. Some cheaper supplies do not output the power that they claim! Any quality smartphone charger, for example, rated 1A and above would be perfect (raid the kitchen drawers!) Logging inWhen you finally boot up you will be asked to log in. The login is pi and the password is raspberry. Note that nothing appears when you type the password, so tpye caerfuly! Command line and windowsThe Pi boots into a command line where you type instructions to the computer. To start a windows-style graphical user interface, first log in, and then type startx and press enter. Brain on a stick warning: The Raspberry Pi is special. We built this little computer so that you have to tell it what to do, not the other way round. You’re in charge. It’s a very different experience to unboxing a tablet or laptop—deliberately so!—but because of this it has so much more potential. We accept full responsibility for any learning, thinking or fun that may occur whilst using our product. 3. What can you do with your Raspberry Pi?Because it’s a general purpose computer, you can do loads of stuff. But because it’s also small and light and doesn’t use much power, you can do even more amazing things. And if you just want to use it as a media player then that’s cool with us too. Want to know more? For younger Pi people we recommend Carrie Anne Philbin’s Adventures in Raspberry Pi, which will get you set up and hacking away in an afternoon. Otherwise we recommend the official User Guide, co-authored by our very own Eben Upton, which will take you from raw beginnings to automating your whole house. Merry Christmas! We’ll be back in a few days – we’re taking a little while out to spend time with our families. And have nice elevenses with a slice of seed cake and a glass of madeira. — Additional resources and projectsThe MagPi magazine is full of help, tutorials, projects and ideas. It’s free and quite excellent. Did we mention that we have a free version of Minecraft for the Pi? It’s great fun to play, but even better to program and there are some excellent resources to show you how. Lastly, if you are stuck for inspiration then have a trawl through our blog, which is both excellent reading (Liz just won an award for it, hurrah!) and will also get you thinking,”Wow! I’m going to do that!” Then sidle off to our lovely resources to learn how to do everything from making games, composing music, making time lapse movies and the basics of programming. Have fun! |
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
You Got a New Kindle e-Reader, Now What?
| The Amazon Kindle makes a great e-reader and many people tried to be good all year long so Santa would leave one under the tree. After unwrapping it and powering it on for the first time, whats next? The Amazon ecosystem is fairly extensive. Visiting the online bookstore will have a number of terms that may not make sense, Kindle Worlds, Kindle Singles and Unlimited. What does it all mean and what things should you be most concerned about? If you have a new Kindle Paperwhite 2, Kindle Voyage, Kindle Basic Touch or a different model, you are now apart of a great new world of e-reading. Amazon has one of the most extensive and well developed ecosystems in the world, and sometimes its not immediately apparent on what they all mean. First of all, lets understand a few elements of the UI that you need to know. Most Kindle e-readers have a built in lightning system that can be accessed by hitting the little light bulb. You can scroll up and down to find the ideal illumination settings to suit your needs. Additionally, you might notice a little G, this is a shortcut to access GoodReads, which is a company Amazon purchased in 2013. On a basic level, it is a book discovery and social community centered around reading. You can participate in online book clubs and add books you are currently reading to your shelf, and share it with friends. Often, like minded souls randomly connect with each other, due to the common literary interests. Upon visiting the Kindle Store for the first time, there are a few key areas such as Kindle Unlimited, Kindle Worlds, Kindle Singles, Kindle Freetime and Kindle Exclusives. The naming conventions Amazon uses, might confuse some users, lets take a look at what they all mean. Amazon's Kindle Unlimited, the e-book and audiobook subscription service that lets members pay a flat monthly fee for unlimited access to its catalog, of 700,0000 titles. There is a thirty day free trial and the option to pay $9.99 a month for the service. You will find a few good reads here, including the Hunger Games series and all of the Harry Potter books. Major publishers have not committed themselves yet, so you will find many titles by indie authors. Amazon launched its Kindle Worlds fan fiction platform just over a year ago, and the concept has been a great success for both the rights holders who license content to the site and the fans who adore the concepts and story lines of their favorite authors. You can think of this as an officially sanctioned service that has properties such as Vampire Diaries and GI JOE. Launched in January 2011, Amazon.com's Kindle Singles provides an opportunity for reading customers to find digital titles by established bestselling authors and up-and-coming writers alike that fit a very specific need. With publications whose word counts are limited to between 5,000 words and 30,000 words, Kindle Singles pieces are works that would be considered far too long for magazine space but are too short to be considered a traditional novel. The one thing I like about Singles is their is a extensive editorial process that does not make it easy for just anymore to list their content on it. You can insure that most of the e-Books listed in Singles are very high quality. Kindle Freetime has been around for awhile, but is entirely new to the Kindle Voyage. It allows parents to buy into a monthly subscription program that allows their kids to download unlimited apps, games, and e-Books. The only thing you can really do on the Voyage though, is just read books. This makes it a really good investment if you own the Fire Phone or one of Amazons Fire tablets, but doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as a standalone service on the Voyage. Kindle Exclusives feature books that are actually published with by Amazon via one of their imprints. They sign established and up and coming authors, selling the books not only on Amazons websites, but bookstores all over the world. There are only a few hundred books listed in this section, so it should be easy to find something good and they are all affordable. Oh, and they have a fairly cool feature just for Prime members, Read Before Release. It allows you to read the book in full, a few weeks before its due out. There are a number of cool Amazon tips that you should also be aware of. If you own a model with a touchscreen, you can actually take screenshots. You simply have to put two fingers in opposing corners and the screen will briefly flash. You can also use a 3rd party program called Calibre that will allow you to manually load in books that you download from the internet. The app is available for PC and MAC and also has the ability to convert books from one format to another. You Got a New Kindle e-Reader, Now What? is a post from: Good e-Reader |
The Future of Used eBooks to be Decided January 13th 2015
| Tom Kabinet and the Dutch Publishing Association have been at odds with each other with the concept of used e-Books. The two sides of been battling in court for the past few months and a verdict was supposed to occur on December 23rd. Due to the Christmas holidays the judgement has been postponed until 13 January 2015. The Amsterdam District Court ruled in July that Tom Kabinet can stay open for business during a legal battle against the Dutch Publishers Association. The publishers believe Tom Kabinet infringes on copyrights and they may have a point. Their own research suggests 90% of all eBooks that are listed on the site are pirated and that criminals are reselling books they download from torrent websites. The big argument that Tom Kabinet is employing is a 2012 decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union, which ruled in a dispute between Oracle and UsedSoft that the trading of "used" software licenses is legal and that the author of such software cannot oppose any resale. The Tom Kabinet business model is acting as a facilitator between buyers and sellers. The take a cut of each transaction and embed a digital watermark in the book, so publishers are verify the book has been officially resold. The website functions only in the Netherlands, but is hoping that if it beats the court, it can expand into other countries in 2015. The Future of Used eBooks to be Decided January 13th 2015 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Fire HD and HDX: 50 Tips, Tricks & Recommended Apps
| A couple years ago I posted an article with 40 Tips and Tricks for the Kindle Fire HD. Some of the tips still apply to the newer Fire HDX and Fire HD tablets for 2014, but a lot has changed since then so I wanted to put together this updated article with 50 tips, tricks […] |
Will Subscription e-Book Sites Continue to be Viable in 2015?
| One of the big trends of 2014 was the emergence of subscription services, where you pay a monthly fee and get access to thousands of e-books. Amazon Kindle Unlimited, Oyster, Entitle and Scribd have all gained the support of indie authors and publishers. How viable are their business models and will they continue to grow in 2015, or disappear entirely. Scribd is the premier subscription reading service with more than 500,000 titles, including New York Times bestsellers, classics, and reader favorites in every genre. A pioneer of the all-you-can-read model, Scribd’s subscriptions service allows readers to have unlimited access to more than 500,000 books from nearly 1,000 publishers, including Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Open Road Media, Lonely Planet, National Geographic, Rosetta, Workman, Wiley and Smashwords. The site originally launched in 2007 , but only launched their subscription service in October 2013. The service does not seem to be profitable yet and still relies on external funding in other to continue operations. To date, they have raised over $25 million dollars. Oyster is the other mainstream e-Book subscription service and tends to only focus on the US market. The company launched in 2013 and currently has over 500,000 e-Books in their portfolio. They deal with the same publishing companies as Scribd does. They raised over $14 million dollars from a number of venture capital companies and are not profitable yet and rely on their funding to continue doing business. Entitle, formerly named eReatah, allows members to read two books a month for $14.99, three books a month for $21.99 and four books a month for $27.99. Members will own and have permanent access to any books they download regardless of their subscription status with Entitle, and these books can be read on up to six devices. Members can read books on the newly-launched Entitle e-reading app for iPad, iPhone and Android devices. There are over 100,000 titles on the Entitle platform from over a thousand publishers, including Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins Publishers, Kensington Books, Berrett-Koehler, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Workman Publishing, Sourcebooks, Open Road Media, RosettaBooks and many more. Entitle is the only eBook subscription company to secure content deals with more than one of the major corporate publishers, and has titles such as Doctor Sleep, Life of Pi, Duck Dynasty’s Si-ology 101, Beautiful Ruins, Miracles and Massacres, The Perks of Being A Wallflower, The Storyteller, The Bully Pulpit, Happy, Happy, Happy, Remy, Beautiful Beginning, The Light Between Oceans, A House in the Sky, Hero, Brain on Fire, Hyperbole and a Half and City of Bones. In addition, Entitle offers titles distributed by Ingram Content Group and Independent Publishers Group. In late 2014 Amazon got into the Netflix for e-books game and launched Kindle Unlimited. The service has over 700,000 digital editions available, mainly from small publishers and indie authors. Major publishers have all expressed trepidation about getting involved in the Amazon system and instead have backed their competition. Currently, Amazon has the largest footprint in terms of members being able to sign up. They operate in US, UK, Germany, France, Brazil and a few other countries. Scribd and Osyster have adopted the pay-per-read system in order to pay publishers. Indie authors and publishers earn 60% list price when a reader opens an e-book and reads more than 10% of the book. On average, Amazon pays authors $1.39 for each qualifying read. In some cases, Amazon ironed out exclusive deals with Pottermore and Susanne Collins for the Hunger Games and the Harry Potter series. All of these subscription sites never talk about their data and metrics, in terms of how much revenue they gain and or how many paid subscriptions they have. I do know from talking with many industry experts, is none of them, save Amazon is actually making enough money to stay operational. Instead, they are caught in a loop of constantly raiding venture capital in order to stay afloat. It leads me to belive that the average reader is happier buying books, one by one, than having access to an incomprehensible amount. It is far easier from a readers prospective to buy the titles that just came out, than to browse a huge selection of older titles via Scribd and Oyster. Will these sites continue to be viable in 2015? I have a feeling at least one of these companies will go out of business. The public has not accepted this business model yet and major publishers do not distribute new titles to their platforms, which in turn does not appeal to your the average reader. Will Subscription e-Book Sites Continue to be Viable in 2015? is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Amazon Giving Away $220 Worth of Android Apps
| This holiday season Amazon is promoting their largest Android app giveaway in the history of the Amazon appstore. From December 24 through December 26th, you can get $220 worth of paid Android apps for free. The bundle giveaway includes a number of games such as Angry Birds and some old school games like Sonic and […] |
Boeye D81: Dual Screen Tablet and E Ink eReader
| Wouldn’t it be cool to have a tablet with an E Ink screen on the back? That’s basically the concept of the Boeye D81. On one side it has an 8-inch IPS display; flip it over and there’s an HD E Ink screen on the back. The device is somewhat similar to the Yotaphone, a […] |
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: sneak peek
| As you’ll know if you’ve been reading recently, you’ll know we’re sponsoring this year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. The lectures are broadcast this year on BBC4 at 8pm on December 29, 30 and 31 – and we’ve got a sneak peek for you today. First up, here’s a Tetris clone, being played on the side of a towerblock (yes, a Raspberry Pi was involved in the making of this demo): And a mixed robot/human orchestra playing the Dr Who theme. International viewers will be able to watch after the lectures are broadcast on the Royal Institution’s website, where you also can learn much more about this 189-year-old education and entertainment tradition. Merry Christmas! |
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
San Francisco Public Library is Leading the Charge on Digital
| The San Francisco Library system first started to get involved in loaning out digital content 2009. They started very modestly with one vendor and now deal with over nine different companies to ensure their patrons will have the latest audiobooks, digital magazines, e-Books and streaming video. In 2014 the San Francisco Public Library maintained an operating budget of $11.5 million dollars, which 25% of it was invested into digital products. They have an extensive collection provided by Overdrive, Baker & Taylor, Hoopla, Alexander Street Press, Safari, Ebsco, Gale, PressReader, Recorded Books. In addition to fiction and non-fiction content, they also have a ton of reference content from Gale, EBSCO, Proquest and other smaller vendors. Patrons are loving their heavily curated collections and the library reported 10,036,860 loans of print and audiovisual materials and 808,093 audiobooks, e-Books and digital magazines in 2014. In August 2014 the San Francisco Public Library system unveiled their new e-news center at their main branch and has since expanded it to Chinatown and North Beach. The premise is to draw attention to the virtues of reading digital magazines and newspapers on a bunch of Apple iPads. The actual content is provided for free to patron by Vancouver based PressReader, who is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with. One of the big developments in the library industry in the last few years is major publishers finally coming around to the idea that just because an e-Book is loaned out for free, it does not devalue the product. Due to extensive lobbying of the American Library Association, all publishers are now involved. This provides challenges, because they all have a different program. Some allow a certain number of loans before a title has to be repurchased and others charge an arm and a leg, but don’t expire. Laura Lent explained how the SFPL copes “There are good and bad points with each pricing model, and it does present management challenges to keep track of it all and make wise purchasing and licensing decisions. More publishers seem to be interested in annual or two-year license expiration dates, which makes the HarperCollins 26 circulation model look good in comparison.” She went on the elaborate “The main focus for us is to ensure we don't end up with a huge renewal bill in a year. We have placed regular weekly orders for titles that will expire in a year or two, so that the renewal lists will be manageable. Now that we are finally seeing those renewal lists come in, we are working on a process to review titles and decided if we need to repurchase. You have to look closely at the reports, since while one copy may be expiring, it isn’t always clear if there are more copies available which are not yet expiring. If we opt to not repurchase, then we need to make sure we delete the bib record.” The library is starting to see massive traction on their digital collection, but continues to look towards the future. Soon, Zinio magazines will be available in the e-news center, which gives patrons a number of titles, including National Geographic. They also are predicting that in 2015 more companies will embrace the Hoopla model, which provides the library with their entire content catalog and adhere to the pay-per-use model. San Francisco Public Library is Leading the Charge on Digital is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Top 5 Best Android Comic Book Readers
| You may be hesitant to load up your favourite comics using a digital reader, but the truth is that it’s not as bad as you think. While it lacks a certain charm that comes from physically flipping through an issue, it’s certainly convenient –and you needn’t worry about the oils from your skin or creases in the pages. Choosing the right comic reader for your Android device can be a little intimidating, with the incredible selection to choose from… so let me guide you through my top 5 choices. Comics by ComiXology – This is my go-to reader, with a library of more than 50,000 digital comics and graphic novels. It’s easy to buy issues in-app, with everything available the same day as with traditional print releases. The user interface is incredibly versatile, with easy scanning and zooming as you flip between pages… and the platform is cloud-based (which means that your progress and collection is automatically synced across all of your devices). There is a downside of course –this is a closed app, which means only the material gathered using the app can be read using it. ComicRack Free – It may have started as a desktop comic reader, but ComicRack has made a good name for itself in the mobile marketplace as well. The interface is simple and works well, but the strength of this app comes from the fantastic library management. If you have material in a variety of formats, look no further –CBR and CBZ are supported natively, but in conjunction with the desktop app you can add CB7, CBT, PDF, DJVU and WebComics formats are on the list. ComiCat (Comic Reader/Viewer) – Before you read too much further, know that ComiCat isn’t free, but it’s really worth every penny of the $3.49 price-tag. While it’s try that it really doesn’t offer more (at the core) than competitive free apps like ComicRack Free, it does have a lot of refinement that you’d expect from a commercial product. It’s fast and versatile, and packed with extra nice-to-have features: with a single tap you can scan your device for compatible content (including files on your device storage, download folder, SD Card, or cloud), adjust screen brightness in-app, use password protection, auto split two-page scans and auto crop margins, take bookmarks further by remembering your reading location, and more! Astonishing Comic Reader – One of the newer comic readers out there, Astonishing has the beauty of being built exclusively with mobile in mind. All of the standard features apply, including simple navigation and powerful zoom –along with being able to generate beautiful wallpapers and boasting Chromecast support. Search is another area where this reader shines, with intelligent suggestions that help you to round out your collection with related comics based on your existing comic roll. Even more exciting is the lack of ads that go along with the free price-tag. Web Comic Reader for Android – Comics have reached a whole new genre with their emergence on the web without an in-print counterpart. We all have our favourites, whether you wait patiently for the next XKCD or you can’t help but giggle reading Cyanide and Happiness. You can certainly navigate your way around the Internet in a web browser, but that is so 10-years ago! Thanks to Web Comic Reader for Android you can keep track of all your favourite web-based strips while also saving your place (so you can read back from the beginning… which you know is on your to-do list).
Top 5 Best Android Comic Book Readers is a post from: Good e-Reader |
10 Public Libraries in US and Canada Surpass 1 Million eBook Downloads
| Ten different libraries in Canada and the United States had over one million e-Book checkouts in 2014, a significant increase from the six libraries that achieved the milestone in 2013. Overdrive has the largest presence all over the world, but tends to focus on North America the most. The company is the market leader when it comes to hooking up libraries with the power to purchase and distribute audiobooks and e-Books for patrons to borrow. Not only have 10 libraries hit over a million or more downloads, but Toronto Public Library and King County Library System had over two million. The following libraries have joined the 2014 Million Digital Checkouts Club: New York Public Library (NY): (42%) Seattle Public Library (WA): (35%) Hennepin County Library (MN): (33%) Los Angeles Public Library (CA): (56%) Cleveland Public Library (OH): (25%) Calgary Public Library (AB): (30%) Cuyahoga County Public Library (OH): (35%) Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County (OH): (42%) 10 Public Libraries in US and Canada Surpass 1 Million eBook Downloads is a post from: Good e-Reader |
