| Apple is mulling over the decision to lower the 70/30 revenue system for app purchases and in-app micro transactions. The company is currently battling a number of alternative ecosystems such as Google Play and Amazon. If Apple were to lower its percentage it takes from purchases, it may make selling e-books, newspapers and magazines much more viable. The current word on the street is that Apple is planning on offering publishers a better revenue system in order to make the Newsstand more viable. Publishers operate on razor thin margins and lowering the cut Apple takes for each subscription taken out, would be more appealing. Currently there are no plans to change the revenue system for app developers. Not only are publishers being courted for this revised system but also television and media companies. The Apple Newsstand as lost its sheen and many companies are not as bullish on the platform as when it first launched. In 2012, John Gruber said that Newsstand is a place where apps go to be forgotten. Today the Newsstand app is much worse. The folder-like design in iOS 5 and iOS 6 has been replaced with an opaque app icon. The end result is so horrible that it's hard to avoid thinking it was done maliciously: if someone was tasked with hiding away a set of unwanted apps, they would be likely to come back with a design that was something very much like the iOS 8 Newsstand. In 2014 Apple paid out $10 billion dollars in royalties from people downloading paid apps and making in-app payments. The one industry not getting anything are companies such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Google. Rather than pay Apple as high percentage of each e-book purchase, they aren’t participating in likely the world’s most lucrative ecosystem. If Apple does lower its revenue system to 90/10 or even 95/5 it might be the kick in the pants the publishing industry needs in order to sell e-books and still make a profit. It would also be more appealing to companies to give the Newsstand a second look. Apple Might Lower Revenue Share System for Newspaper and Magazine Publishers is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Saturday, June 6, 2015
Apple Might Lower Revenue Share System for Newspaper and Magazine Publishers
Podcast: Audiobook Deals, Summer Reading and More
| Welcome to the Good e-Reader Radio Show! Today we feature some of the key audiobook deals that are available as part of Audiobook Month. There are a number of retailers hyping up some big savings, so you want to check it out. The feature stories on the show today are the challenges of self-publishing audiobooks and the lack of competition in this space. There is little to no discovery services or self-publishing companies willing to produce or sell audiobooks on an authors behalf. Why are e-book prices so expensive suddenly? Lots of people have been wondering why the same book that cost $9.99 last year is suddenly $12.99 or more. Finally, summer is on its way and everyone seems to be hyping up various reading campaigns. New research though states the vast majority of kids have never been to the bookstore and fewer have ever received a book as a gift. Podcast: Audiobook Deals, Summer Reading and More is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Friday, June 5, 2015
Digital E-book Lending in UK Libraries is Fraught with Peril
| Digital e-book lending in United Kingdom libraries is still in its infancy. Major publishers still have not committed front-list titles in a meaningful way and there is no clear path to standardizing digital in the modern library. UK libraries have not invested in digital the way they have in the United States. 95% of all US libraries have a collection of e-book titles and this drops off a cliff in the UK. E-Book loans are roughly 5% of the average UK library, chiefly because they aren’t investing enough capital into collections and public awareness. In 2013 and 2014 English taxpayers paid £985 million pounds for public libraries. £550 million of that was spent on staff and management. £55 million was spent on print books ( of which about £15 million was processing and £40 million went to publishers) and £10 million was spent on e-Books. The tremendous amount of apathy booksellers and publishers have for digital library lending is palpable. Tim Godfray, CEO of the Booksellers Association said there are “serious ramifications that we believe e-book lending will have on our bookshops, not to mention the potential reduction of people visiting libraries. 39% of e-book borrowers said that they were much less likely to visit a bookshop; 37% said they were much less likely to purchase printed books; and 31% said they were much less likely to purchase e-books. If public libraries are able to loan as many e-books as they want without fair and balanced controls, many commercial aspects of the book trade would be harmed.” It really looks like the booksellers association and publishers don’t want e-books in UK libraries. They are basically standing on their own little soapboxes proclaiming that library lending would be the death mark on mainstream bookstores such as Waterstone’s and mom and pop stores across the country. Digital E-book Lending in UK Libraries is Fraught with Peril is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Nook Audiobooks Celebrates Audiobook Month
| Barnes and Noble has announced some big savings on their Nook Audiobooks app for Android. The company is taking advantage of the media publicity and launching a big campaign. Kashif Zafar, VP, Digital Content at NOOK outlined to Good e-Reader exactly what they are doing. “To celebrate Audiobooks month, in the first two weeks of June, the NOOK Audiobooks for Android app will feature a number of collections focused on bestsellers and highly engaging titles for customers who want to listen to audiobooks while they "multi-task". Because we know that people often listen to audiobooks while doing something else, we've created unique collections for a number of various activities — for example, we have a list of favorite audiobooks for commuters, a collection for people who work around the house, one for people who exercise, one for crafters, and more.” Kashif went on to say “Following on the heels of that, running June 14-22, we will have a Father's Day 40% off sale that showcases audiobooks that dad (or anyone!) would love: blockbuster thrillers, biographies, and more. And of course, a permanent feature we have is our Daily Find, which Android customers can find by going into the app and scrolling down on the Shop Home – it features unabridged audiobooks at 60% or more off the list price. We're excited to put these collections and programs together for our customers to help them discover great audiobooks that we love.” Nook Audiobooks Celebrates Audiobook Month is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Your Child is Not Going to Read this Summer
| Bookstores, libraries and publishing companies have all unveiled their summer reading programs which have a singular objective; getting your child to read outside of the classroom. Sadly, there is one major impediment: parents. A new study conducted by the Literacy Trust looked at the reading trends of children in 2014 and found nearly one in four students agreed with the statement: "My parents don't care if I spend any time reading." One in six boys surveyed by the Trust have never been given a book as a present and one in five say they haven't been taken to a bookstore. The numbers shrink a bit for girls. The key to getting kids to read this summer, according to Kate DiCamillo is “letting kids choose their own books. Don't hover. Don't judge. Don't say no if they want another "Big Nate" instead of "Charlotte's Web. Be the parent who says "this is totally yours," DiCamillo says. "It's treacherous waters where you're forcing something onto them. It pushes them further away." Deborah Johnson is the buyer for the book section of Barston's Child's Play toy store said that parents need to relax this summer, too, just because a child in fourth or fifth grade might not jump into reading easily "doesn't mean they won't become a lifelong reader," she says. "I think kids get messages that parents are worried about their reading. But we have to remember that everyone has their own taste and own pace." She also mentioned she doesn't mean to lecture, but children have phones and other technology from a very young age. If they play a lot of "brain-numbing games, they are less likely to want to read a book. So perhaps we should consider getting our faces away from the phone, too. Remember that children are modeling our behavior.” Luminary author James Patterson also wants your child to read and is doing his best to foster the love of the written word. In a recent television interview he said “a lot of parents know they are supposed to work with their kids on their soccer skills and teach them how to ride a bike. And that's all good. But what I think people really have to get into their head is that it is our job as parents and grandparents—it's not the schools job—it's our job to get our kids reading so there need to be books in the house.” James Patterson and I share the same fear that children these days are living their lives without books. It is the parents responsibility to foster a love of reading and to visit the library or take them to the bookstore. Remember, children without books translates to a world run by the shortsighted and the glib and the apathetic and the narrow-minded. Your Child is Not Going to Read this Summer is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Apply now for Picademy in July
| At this very moment, the Raspberry Pi education team are in Exeter nearing the end of the second day of Picademy #10; Day 2 is Project Day, and the #picademy hashtag on Twitter is full of photos of biscuit-tin robots, papercrafts, Babbage bears and breadboards as the teams share their projects. Primary, secondary and post-16 teachers can be part of CPD like this: Picademy #11 takes place on 13 and 14 July at Pi Towers in Cambridge, UK, and you can apply here. As ever, it’s completely free to attend, and you don’t need any experience: we’ll teach you, inspire you, feed you, and give you free resources, and at the end, you’ll join the friendly and enthusiastic ranks of Raspberry Pi Certified Educators (you even get a badge). But what’s it like, exactly? Raspberry Pi Certified Educators have blogged and tweeted quite a lot about their experiences of Picademy:
Sway Grantham, a Year 5 class teacher and one of our earliest Picademy attendees, joined us at the recent Picademy North in York and used Storify to bring together glimpses of the event from Twitter. One of our favourite things about Picademy is watching the effects ripple out afterwards, as people write about its impact on their teaching and network with one another to organise events local to them. Spencer Organ, a chemistry teacher from a school in Birmingham who attended Picademy in October 2014 blogged about the training itself and, later that term, about the impact of his two days at Pi Towers: David Saunders travelled from overseas to attend Picademy in April, and went home inspired:
More Raspberry Pi Certified Educators have written about their Picademy experiences and their effects than I can quote here, and you’ll find more of them listed on our Picademy home page. We always finish Picademy with a group photo. It’s an occasion of dignity and gravitas. So, what are you waiting for? The post Apply now for Picademy in July appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Top Audiobook Apps for Android – 2015
| There aren’t that many quality Audiobook apps for Google Android, as most companies tend to focus on iOS. Still, if you are looking to buy audiobooks, borrow them from the library or subscribe to an audiobook streaming service there are a number of viable options. June 2015 is audiobook month and we are putting the spotlight on them all month long. All of these audiobook apps on this list are available to downloaded for free from the Good e-Reader App Store. Many of the apps are available on Google Play, but most are only able to be downloaded if you live in the US. Nook Audiobooks – Barnes and Noble launched a new audiobook service a few months ago and the company is really hyping this service in bookstores and online. There are over 50,000 audiobooks available the app is fairly well designed. Mortplayer Audiobooks – Mortplayer allows you to import in your own audiobooks that you download from the internet. They also have a number of widgets that can be added to your homescreen to better access content. Audible – Audible is the largest audiobook system in the world. They have over 180,000 titles can be downloaded for free or purchased. The company always has a promotion where if you are register for a new account you can download a few audio titles for free. Audible is owned by Amazon and has the largest footprint in terms of sheer number of users who regularly access the platform. Scribd – Scribd started out as an e-book subscription platform that allows you to read as many titles as you want, for a monthly fee. The company deverisfied into audiobooks a few months ago and is quickly becoming a hit. Instead of buying your audio titles one by one, you can listen to as many as you want. The service is not only exclusive to the United States either, they are in a ton of international markets. Audiobooks by Audiobooks.com – This is one of the most popular audiobook platforms because it has a ton of content. There are over 60,000 audiobooks available to purchase and 2,500 for free. This app is really well designed and colorful. If you are a member of this company, you save anywhere between 50% and 80% off the cover price. Additionally June 2015 is Audiobook Month and this company is giving away a free one everyday, most are bestsellers. Overdrive – Overdrive is the largest company currently particiapting in the library space. When your local library offers e-books, audiobooks or music, chances are they deal with these guys. The official Overdrive app allows you to listen to audiobooks that are borrowed from the library. The average new title certainly does not have the same type of waiting list as a physical book or e-book. This is a very popular app and many people are using it on their smartphones and tablets. LibriVox Audio Books – LibriVox Audio Books access to over 15,000 free audio books. Each LibriVox audio book can be streamed over the internet or downloaded for later use without any charge. US users can access an additional 50,000 professional audiobooks. The LibriVox Audio Books app includes listings for new recordings, featuring classic best sellers and out of print treasures. 3M Cloud Library – The 3M Cloud Library allows you to borrow and read eBooks and eAudiobooks from your local public library for free. Your library needs to subscribe to the service and you will need your library card and PIN to access the content. The newly redesigned app includes all new navigation and personalization, making it easier than ever to find eBooks or Audiobooks from your local public library. This app includes a fully functional reader allowing the user to read their ebook directly in the app, as well as bookmark and save the position of their book across devices. It also includes an Audiobook player, allowing the user to download, play and listen to their books offline. Top Audiobook Apps for Android – 2015 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Top 10 Bestselling Audiobooks May 2015
| Today we are taking a look at the bestselling audiobooks from May 2015. If you are looking for fiction and non-fiction titles, this list should give you an indication on what is selling. Fiction 1. Radiant Angel by Nelson DeMille, narrated by Scott Brick (Hachette Audio) 2. The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams, narrated by the author (Phoenix Books) 3. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, narrated by Clare Corbett, Louise Brealey and India Fisher (Penguin Audio) 4. Piranha by Clive Cussler and Boyd Morrison, narrated by Scott Brick (Penguin Audio) 5. The Heat of the Moon by Sandra Parshall, narrated by Tavia Gilbert (Blackstone Audio) 6. The Neon Lawyer by Victor Methos, narrated by Nick Podehl (Brilliance Audio) 7. Three Daughters by Consuelo Saah Baehr, narrated by Karen Peakes (Brilliance Audio) 8. Seveneves: A Novel by Neal Stephenson, narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal and Will Damron (Brilliance Audio) 9. All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel by Anthony Doerr, narrated by Zach Appelman (Simon & Schuster Audio) 10. The Martian by Andy Weir, narrated by R.C. Bray (Podium Publishing) Nonfiction 1. Now I Know More: The Revealing Stories Behind Even More of the World’s Most Interesting Facts by Dan Lewis, narrated by Anthony Haden Salerno (Audible Studios) 2. Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance, narrated by Fred Sanders (Harper Audio) 3. The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life by Thomas M. Sterner, read by the author (Mountain Sage Publishing) 4. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo, narrated by Emily Woo Zeller (Tantor Audio) 5. Yes Please by Amy Poehler, narrated by the author with Carol Burnett, Seth Meyers, Mike Schur, Eileen Poehler, William Poehler, Patrick Stewart and Kathleen Turner (Harper Audio) 6. Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America’s Gutsiest Troublemakers by Nick Offerman, narrated by the author (Penguin Audio) 7. The Wright Brothers by David McCullough, narrated by the author (Simon & Schuster Audio) 8. How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie, narrated by Andrew MacMillan (Simon & Schuster Audio) 9. You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman by Mike Thomas, narrated by Corey Snow (Audible Studios) 10. Bossypants by Tina Fey, narrated by the author (Hachette Audio) Top 10 Bestselling Audiobooks May 2015 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Amazon Kids Tablet Launches in UK and Germany
| Amazon has put together their first true true tablet aimed at children with the Fire HD Kids Edition. This device launched in late 2014 in the US and gives parents the option to subscribe to Kindle Freetime Unlimited, which includes thousands of apps, books and movies on a À la carte basis. It also has a child proof case that ships with the unit and a two year warranty. This tablet has just launched in the United Kingdom and Germany. The Amazon Fire HD Kids Edition on a fundamental hardware level is the exact same as the Fire HD7. It has a seven inch capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1280 X 800 pixels. The colors look rich and vibrant, but it certainly won't break any barriers in terms of the 216 PPI. This device also comes in a few bright colors Underneath the hood is a quadcore 1.5 GHZ processor, 1 GB of RAM, and 8 GB of internal storage. There is also a rear facing camera with 3 MP and a fairly woeful front facing .03 MP camera. When you buy the kids tablet it comes with your choice of colors for the rubber protective housing. There is a few that will appeal to boys and girls, such as blue, pink and yellow. The two year unlimited warranty should also placate parents. Now the big question is, should you buy this tablet for your kids? Freetime Unlimited is fairly compelling, it gives you thousands of free apps, games and e-books. Amazon does not accept any content with in-app payments, so there are no hidden agendas. The service is not free though, it costs £2 or 3 euros per month, or up to £8 or 10 euros per month for a family of up to four children . Parents can also lock out specific aspects, such as the internet browser, YouTube or social media accounts. This tablet might be a viable investment for tech savvy families who have WIFI enabled cars and want a tablet that will act as a babysitter. On the other hand, I don’t know if young kids should have fully featured multimedia tablets to use unsupervised. It can lead to sexting, cyber-bulling or adult only content. Amazon Kids Tablet Launches in UK and Germany is a post from: Good e-Reader |
The Challenges of Self-Publishing an Audiobook
| Indie authors who want to distribute and sell an e-book have hundreds of viable options. Every major online bookseller such as Amazon, B&N and Kobo all have their own portals to submit content and sell it worldwide. Things are very different with digital audiobooks, which has quickly become a billion dollar industry. There are few options for indie authors to create an audiobook and offer it for sale. Indie authors are facing insurmountable challenges when they want to generate an audiobook of their novel. Unlike writing a book, it is very hard to create and distribute an audio edition by themselves. Some authors want to narrate their own books and submit it to various online retailers by themselves, after all they wrote the book themselves, how hard can it be? The stark truth is that making an audiobook goes far beyond investing in a microphone and mixing board. For example, the sound must be consistent. Why? Consistency in audio levels, tone, noise level, spacing, and pronunciation helps give the listener a great experience. Drastic changes can be jarring and are not in keeping with a professional production. Extreme fluctuations in volume means the listener will have to keep a hand on the volume control of their listening device. This detracts from the listening experience and may lead to poor reviews and reduced sales. An audiobook needs opening and closing credits which state the title of the book, the authors name and the publisher. The end credits merely need to say the end. The final product also needs a sample between 1 and 5 minutes in order to give a prospective listener a taste of whats to come. If you want to submit your audiobook to Audible, Apple or Amazon and are doing it yourself, things get even more advanced. You have to record your books in segments, chapter by chapter. You simply can’t record one file that is 4 hours. Each uploaded file must have between 0.5 and 1 second of room tone at the head, and between 1 and 5 seconds of room tone at the tail. Each uploaded file must be free of extraneous sounds such as plosives, mic pops, mouse clicks, excessive mouth noise, and outtakes. Each uploaded file must measure between -23dB and -18dB RMS.Each uploaded file must have peak values no higher than -3dB. Each uploaded file must have a noise floor no higher than -60dB RMS. Finally each file must be 44.1 kHz and each file no larger than 170MB. If you don’t know what any of the above actually means? Chances are you won’t be able to record the audiobook yourself and instead must lean on a professional. The most viable way to discovery content producers and sound engineers is via the Audiobook Creation Exchange. It is a platform that is run Audible, which is an Amazon company. In order to get started with ACX you have to look around for narrators that you want to do business with and make them an offer. Do you want to pay them for their efforts upon completion of the audiobook or do you prefer to split your royalties with them fifty-fifty? You will be faced with this choice before you can send them the Offer. When the audiobook is completed it can be submitted to the Audible store. It also gets distributed on the main Amazon website and also the Apple store. In the near future Apple is moving audiobooks out of iTunes and including them in a new section on the iBookstore. The drawback of the Audible Creation Exchange is that it is only available for US residents, with a valid tax ID number and billing address. This prevents millions of authors who reside in Canada, the United Kingdom and Europe from taking advantage of the platform and submitting content. Some people bypass this by 3rd parties who submit the audiobook on the authors behalf, but there is a severe lack of companies willing to do this. So what happens if you don’t live in the US and still want to get an audiobook produced for your novels? Luckily there are a few companies out there that are willing to do it. This is a UK based company that does all of the production work, such as hiring producers, mixers and talent to read the book. The company distributes to Amazon, Audible and iTunes. Royalty payments will be made on a quarterly basis through Paypal. This company will produce your audiobook for you or if you decide to DIY it, will help with distribution into iTunes, Amazon and Audible. The website allows authors to browse a wide selection of professional narrators to read your book and do all of the production work. You are looking at between $100 and $200 an hour for them to record the work. Many audiobook production companies end up charging by the hour, instead of for the final product. It makes it hard to know exactly how much you will ultimately be spending. Infinity Publishing has a standard package of $599, your book will be recorded by a professional male or female reader. The audio will be edited to remove clicks, pops, mouth noise, stops and starts; pacing and timing will be adjusted with clean room sound inserted between all edit points. The final product will have music at the beginning and end of the program, as well as spoken credits to talk about your website and your other books available. This company is mainly about distributing your finished product and does not really help with the actual production of it. Do you want to sell CDs of your audiobook? CD Baby can help you professionally and affordably manufacture any quantity of your audiobook on compact disc and ship them to you in a matter of days. For a quote, click HERE. For a one-time setup fee, CD Baby will warehouse your audiobook CDs and ship them to customers around the world! You can also offer it as an MP3 download on your own website, or create a podcast that releases one new chapter per week. The Problems with Distribution There is a massive distribution problem when an indie author wants to try and get their audiobook out there to be sold. Audible is the only major player for self-publishing. Smaller companies do exist, but their footprint is really small. Open Book Audio is a fine example, they do accept content from indie authors but their website looks like it was made in 1992 and they don’t have any apps to listen to the books while on the go. I have reached out to a number of companies involved in the audiobook space and they all agree that distribution is a massive problem. Things are so bad right now that indie authors are actively encouraged to sell the digital audio edition on their own website or via social media. How in the hell is an author supposed to get themselves out there if no one has ever heard of them and will likely never listen to their digital edition? Room for Growth The audiobook industry is rife with untapped opportunities for enterprising individuals. There is simply no deal of the day websites that currently exist, the best you get is the odd GoodReads post on the subject. There is no catch-all recording and distribution service for indie authors that reside outside of the US. There is no audiobook discovery service that curates lists and gets people enamored with the format. It feels like audiobooks right now are in the same position as e-books in 2007. People are realizing there is a lot of untapped potential in the market, but everyone is waiting for someone else to make the first move. The Challenges of Self-Publishing an Audiobook is a post from: Good e-Reader |
These are a few of our favorite… Audiobooks!
| June is Audiobook Month and the Collection Development Analyst team thought it would be fun to celebrate by sharing some of our favorite listens.
Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish by John Hargrove Michelle’s Pick Carsick by John Waters Emma’s Pick How to be Parisian Wherever You Are by Anne Berest Kristin's Pick Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple Liz's Pick Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay We all love… Ready Player One by Ernest Cline Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon Yes, Please by Amy Poehler Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris You can check out the entire list in Marketplace by clicking the link below. Analyst Team’s Favorite Aubiobooks As always, the Collection Development team is available to help create any recommended lists. Email collectionteam@overdrive.com for more information today! Some titles are metered access and may have limited regional or platform availability. Check OverDrive Marketplace to find what is available for you. Rachel Kray is a Collection Development Analyst at OverDrive  |
How to Set Default Kindle Device & Send eBooks to Multiple Kindles
| One of the cool things about Kindle ebooks is that you can choose which Kindle device or Kindle app you want to send the ebook to directly from the product page when making a purchase. You can also set things up so that Amazon will always automatically deliver new ebooks to a specific Kindle device […] |
Data Demonstrates Most Well-Read Cities in the US
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While the list took into account book sales, magazine sales, and newspaper sales in both print and digital formats, it only looked at cities with a population of 500,000 or more. According to data from Demographia per the 2000 Census, that’s only 71 cities in the US, which is hardly a representative sample and fails to include Knoxville, Tennessee, a city that has repeatedly topped another Amazon list for having the most romance readers. In order, the top 20 cities that are now dubiously declared the most well-read include: 1. Seattle, Wash. "We're excited to see Seattle take the top spot on our annual Most Well-Read Cities list," said Sara Nelson, Editorial Director of Print and Kindle Books at Amazon.com, in a press release. "Summer has just begun and we hope we can help readers discover their next favorite books and contribute to their cities' well-read ranking.” Some other findings from Amazon’s data mining include:
Data Demonstrates Most Well-Read Cities in the US is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Schools leveraging end-of-year surpluses to expand digital content
The Beaufort County Public School District is at the forefront of a growing practice among schools to use surplus end-of-year funds to expand their digital content offerings.
Beaufort and other districts say this provides them the ability to offer students and educators fresh, in-demand titles when they return for the start of the new term – a critical factor in ensuring deep engagement with digital content.
Anne Aita coordinates the district's OverDrive service, which connects thousands of readers with digital titles every month. She said leveraging surplus end-of-year funds to grow the district's selection of digital titles has played an important role in building student and educator interest in eBooks. "Word travels" among students when popular titles are available via OverDrive at the start of the year, she said, boosting digital circulation numbers. Aita also performs staff training for the district's OverDrive service at the beginning of each year, and said having new titles to promote during these sessions builds educator enthusiasm around digital content. It's been proven that one of the best ways to increase student usage of digital content is to have educators on board as active users.  |
Major Publishers Are Screwing Readers with High e-book Prices
| All five of the largest publishing companies in North America and Europe have negotiated new contracts with booksellers such as Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Google and Kobo. The new pricing strategy is called agency-lite, which mandates these stores sell e-books at a fixed cost. This has directly resulted in e-book prices to increase across the entire board. It is seriously bad for readers and its no small wonder print sales are on the rise. I recently purchased a book that came out on May 26th, called Losing the Signal. It is a book that tells the tale of RIM and Blackberry, a fairly compelling read. I bought it the day it came out at 40% off the $32.00 cover price from Chapters Indigo. I ended up paying $12.80 for the book and Amazon is selling the e-book for $14.99. The price difference is only a few dollars, but I own the book. If I would have procured the Kindle edition, the book wouldn’t truly be mine, it would simply be licensed. In the United States and Britain, sales of eBooks represent between a quarter and a third of the consumer book market. According to a recent survey by Nielsen Books, eBook sales made up 23% of unit sales for the first six months of 2014, while hardcover's accounted for 25% and paperbacks 42%. Overall e-book sales have fallen 6% in the US in all of 2014. Publishers setting their own prices on e-books has not only alienated North American readers, but is failing to catch on in international markets. Last year, digital books made up 8% of the consumer book market in France, less than 4% in Germany and Italy, and 1% in Sweden and Norway. Meanwhile over in Asia, Japan led the eBook markets with 15% of the country's total consumer book revenues; China and India, meanwhile, lagged far behind at 3%. Part of the reason why the adoption is so low is the actual cost of eBooks. If you look at the top 10 bestseller list, the average title in France its $24.99, $20.00 in Germany and $19.02 in Sweden. We have even heard reports that in the Netherlands some e-books cost double the amount as a hardcover. One of the big problems with book selling in the digital world, is that titles that are older, tend not to depreciate in price. Whenever a hardcover book comes out, it often costs $25 to $35 dollars. Later on when the paperback edition is released it tends to retail for $9.99 to $12.99. Big box retailers such as Walmart and booksellers like Barnes and Noble just want them sold to clear our inventory. Its far more efficent to offer it for %30 to %40 off to get it sold. E-Books on the other hand cost the same amount, whether the book was published 20 years ago or last week. The chief reason booksellers charge such exorbitant amounts for e-books is because of the huge overhead major publishers have. The largest publishers have glitzy huge rise office towers in Manhattan, lots of staff and bloat. They take gambles on thousands of books in the hopes they will be the next Game of Thrones, 50 Shades of Grey or a Harry Potter. The rent, the staff, the bills and upkeep drive e-book prices sky high, because they can and no one can fight them. Amazon is certainly not a fan of higher e-book prices. When the company was very publicly battling Hachette over a new contract last year, they made some very critical remarks. "With an e-book there's no printing, no overprinting, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out-of-stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be resold as used books," the company wrote. "E-books can be and should be less expensive." "When the price goes up, customers buy much less," the Amazon Book Team noted. "For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if compared at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000." There are two reasons why e-books are so expensive. One is the sheer size of the publishing companies and their crazy overhead. Their pricing model for digital books is very out of touch with the modern consumer. The second, is the revenue is diverted into other digital initiatives. Recently Harpercollins and Shazam announced a partnership to get author interviews and an e-book selling mechanism going. Random House also spent a boatload of cash in their ill-fated attempt to get an e-book discovery site going, called Book Scout. The entire reason I started to buy e-books was to save money. I was a huge evangelist on buying digital and paying less than print. Now the opposite is true, its more cost efficent to buy the hardcover or paperback. I can loan it out to friends, showcase it on my bookshelf and I truly own it. Major Publishers Are Screwing Readers with High e-book Prices is a post from: Good e-Reader |
A wheelchair controlled by eye movements
| Myrijam Stoetzer, 14, and Paul Foltin, 15, are from Duisburg in Germany. They have built a system for controlling a wheelchair using eye movements. A standard webcam with the infrared filter removed tracks eye movements, and the eye is illuminated by (invisible) infrared light from LEDs to allow the system to work in low light conditions. A Raspberry Pi is used to process the video stream to obtain the position of the pupil and compare it with adjustable preset values representing forward, reverse, left and right. The command is then verified with a switch that is currently manual but that should eventually detect small movements of the tongue or cheek. Myrijam and Paul demonstrate their wheelchair control system An Arduino controls recycled windscreen wiper motors via relays to turn custom 3D-printed wheels that sit against the tyres of the wheelchair and push the left and right wheels backwards or forwards to control movement and direction. The camera casing is also 3D-printed to Paul and Myrijam’s own design. The latest feature addition is a collision detection system using IR proximity sensors to detect obstacles. This is their first project after moving on from LEGO Mindstorms, and they’ve chosen to use Python with the OpenCV image processing library for their first build using a full programming language, teaching themselves as they go along. After finding that the Raspberry Pi 1 was a little slow to handle the image processing, Paul and Myrijam tried alternatives before switching to the Raspberry Pi 2 when it became available. It’s their preferred option considering cost and speed together, and they have said they’d welcome help to better their system’s performance by improving their code or by using the Pi 2’s four cores more efficiently. Myrijam and Paul have been competing in Jugend forscht, the German science competition for young people, refining and extending their system as they have progressed through the competition, moving on from a model robotic platform to a real second-hand wheelchair, and using prize money from earlier rounds to fund improvements for later stages. At the weekend, they took their project to the final, where they were judged national winners in the “world of work” category. We’d like to offer them our heartfelt congratulations – we’re monumentally impressed by their work! You can read more on Myrijam’s blog and on Hackaday, where you can also get in touch with this talented duo if you’re interested in helping them with their excellent project. The post A wheelchair controlled by eye movements appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
The New Good e-Reader Forum is now Online
| When we first launched the Good e-Reader Blog in 2008, the e-reader industry was just starting to takeoff. In 2007 Amazon Released the Kindle and it was a game changer. Soon after, new entrants tried to have a go with selling hardware and digital books. We started our original forum in 2009 and ran it for a number of years with over a hundred thousand users and a great community. A server fire at our data center resulted in all data being lost, but we have returned. We have just launched the new version of the Good e-Reader Forum and it is your online destination to keep up with the latest news, previews, interviews and industry coverage. There is also extensive support for your Kindles, Kobo’s or Barnes and Noble Nook e-Reader. Nor sure what e-reader is right for you or looking to upgrade your existing reader? You can ask our support team for information and other users to get a sense on what is on the horizon or what is the best thing available in the here and now. The Good e-Reader Forum just went up today! Join in on the fun and check it out. The New Good e-Reader Forum is now Online is a post from: Good e-Reader |
New Mega Man Television Series in Development
| A new cartoon TV series for the video game franchise Mega Man has been announced and is undergoing development. The show is being produced by American companies, so it is safe to assume the show is English. How much of the subject matter will stay faithful and how much might be Westernised still remains to be seen, as little else is known about the development at this point. Two companies are taking on the series as a joint project: Dentsu Entertainment USA and Man of Action Entertainment. The latter of these companies is known for cartoons such as Ben 10, Ultimate Spider-Man, and Marvel's Avengers Assemble. Mega Man is a video game series that began in 1987, centering around the titular blue robotic hero as he battles various enemies. The game franchise has well 100 games under its belt, along with a few manga spinoffs and a 1994 anime series under the same name. If the 26-episode show airs in 2017, as it is slated to do, it will mark the 30 year anniversary of the first game. It will certainly be amazing to see how much things have changed, and yet, how much of the material will remain the same. New Mega Man Television Series in Development is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Amazon’s Kindle Convert Software Plagued with Negative Reviews
| Back in February of this year, Amazon released a software program for Windows computers called Kindle Convert that is designed to convert scanned documents, PDFs, and printed books into Kindle ebooks. On the surface that sounds like a good plan, but reading through the reviews at Amazon it appears that Kindle Convert software is a […] |
E-Book Sales Down 6% in the United States in 2014
| Print is making a comeback and e-book sales have decreased. Nielsen Pubtrack data is demonstrating that digital sales have fallen 6% in 2014, which equates to 223 million e-books being sold in the US, down from 240 million units in 2013. Nielsen fetches its data from 30 of the largest publishers in the US, so this is an accurate portrayal of sales from mainstream bestsellers such as John Grisham, Stephen King and EL James. The research has basically said that e-books sales are down right? So what are the genres that are selling the most units? Adult fiction had the highest percentage of e-book sales, with 51% of sales purchased in the category bought in digital format. 50% of general fiction, romance, suspense, mystery and fantasy, which were also e-books. Many pundits who follow the publishing industry often have a bone to pick with Nielson data. The main area of conjecture is that Nielson only talks to big publishing companies and excludes indie authors. The average self-published writer does not have a proper ISBN number, so its impossible to accurately gauge their sales. They can sell one copy or thousands, its impossible to tell. Amazon actively tries to prevent this information leaking out, by their terms of service stating that authors can’t publicly disclose revenue or risk being booted out of the Kindle bookstore. Considering Amazon owns 75% of the e-book market in the US and 95% in the UK, few authors are willing to report sales. Why have e-book sales really fallen in the US in 2014? The average price of an e-book has increased over 14% due to new agreements signed by the publishers, giving them more control over discounting by bookstores. Barnes and Noble Nook digital sales dropped 29% year to year, their market share now runs in the single digits. Kindle Unlimited, Oyster and Scribd received a ton of media attention for their e-book subscription services. E-Book Sales Down 6% in the United States in 2014 is a post from: Good e-Reader |
