11:44 PM by NatCh in E-Book General | Deals, Freebies, and Resources

First off, let me say that I have nothing to do with the running of this contest, I know someone who's involved with the book in question, and they are trying to spread the word in hope of getting a good title out of the deal. I do, however, have some small reason to believe that it's legit.

In any case, it looks like simply entering effectively gets you a free copy of the book. Of course it goes without saying (but I will anyway, just 'cause I'm anal like that) that the book is under copyright, and would not be legal to share.

I don't know too much detail on the book itself, beyond what's below, specifically that it's a memoir of some sort, so there's really no telling what those who enter might be in for. I've already responded to the specified address, so I guess I'm along for the ride.

I believe the "local" referred to would be Houston, TX, if that matters to anyone.

Win $3000! Title the Book

A local writer needs your assistance to title his upcoming memoir and has offered a $3000 prize that will go to the person who crafts the title that is chosen for the book and a $500 prize for person who crafts a 25-word synopsis of the story that is chosen for the cover.

Entry procedure:

Email titlethebook@gmail.com about your intent to enter the competition to receive an electronic copy of the manuscript

Read the manuscript and write:

• A suggested title for the memoir
• This should reflect the theme of the piece (hope, survival) without sounding like a self-help book
• Brevity is key: keep it simple, powerful, to the point
• Title should capture the ear and eye and attention of potential readers
• A 25-word synopsis
• An honest, straightforward review

Send the title, synopsis, and review back to titlethebook@gmail.com.

06:14 PM by CommanderROR in E-Book General | News and Commentary

A press release from german startup "Wizpac" just arrived in my mailbox. It contains lots of new information about the newest eink device, the so-called txtr which made it's debut on the Book-Fair in Frankfurt today.

Apart from pricing and release-date information it also gives us some more tec-specs, book selection information and some insight into how the wireless book browsing and purchasing is supposed to work and what kind of subscription cost can be expected.

Here are some tidbits from the press-release:

The txtr will

- start selling on December 1.
- cost 319€
- initially be available in Europe and the US
- come with the txtr store that you can browse directly on the device (but for now ony in Germany, more countries to follow)
- come with optional service plans for wireless ranging from 11.99€ to 14.99€ per month depending on the length of the subscription period
- come with 8GB SD card
- weigh 300 grams
- offer a 6" 16 Greyscale eink screen
- be splash water protected

I'll attach the german press release to this post for all the details.

09:18 AM by yagiz in E-Book General | News and Commentary

Google plans 'buy anywhere, read anywhere' offer

A cloud-based system seems nice to me... available to any device from a central location. However it's important to see the terms & conditions and what Google is allowed to do etc.

And one of my first reactions was: "If this goes through: Bad news for Kindle and good news for Sony!" Later in the article it says:

Edmonds said it was "definitely" Google's intention to partner with device manufacturers, but declined to give names. She added she "doubted" Kindle would be on board.

So much going on these days...

05:20 PM by poohbear_nc in E-Book General | News and Commentary

In a move sure to confuse/anger US Kindle book buyers, the US Amazon website now has listings for Kindle versions of books (so far I've seen Penguin and Faber & Faber) that are not available for purchase by US residents.

http://www.amazon.com/Remains-Day-eb...5375972&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Live-Bait/dp/B...5375899&sr=1-1

If you play with the "change region" option, they appear to be available in the UK, Europe, and the Middle East.

To further confuse customers, the last book in the Monkeewrench series IS available in the US, but not the previous ones. And, the more recent Ishiguro novels are in US Kindle editions, but not his earlier stuff.

One wonders what Amazon's rationale for this is? Anger customers enough to demand their availability in the US? Combine all Kindle listings in one global database that is visible on all Amazon sites - where buyers will have to sift through the "change region" option to find out if they can buy the book?

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Once again, our weekly roundup of highlights from the past seven days of MobileRead:

E-Book General - News and Commentary

• Is Rapidshare a promoter of e-book piracy?
• Spotted: Gosund GS601 e-reader from China
• Tablet PC LBook™ T9 to be released next year
• Amazon Kindle goes international
• Barnes and Noble confirms COLOR e-book reader for Spring 2010

11:04 AM by balend in E-Book General | News and Commentary

At CTIA, a Barnes & Noble let loose some info about a color e-book reader they have coming out. Link to article and video of Daniel Joresson, representative, talking about the e-book reader. http://techkritik.com/2009/10/09/bar...e-book-reader/

04:06 AM by desertgrandma in E-Book General | News and Commentary

Has anyone else seen this? Check out the Amazon Home Page........new lower price on the K1 and international access......

Quick facts:

• Kindle: $259 (previously $299)
• Kindle Wireless US and International: $279
• International available in over 100 countries
• International to ship in less than two weeks

http://www.amazon.com/

04:05 PM by igorsk in E-Book General | News and Commentary

For a change, the Ukrainian company LBook is not doing E-Ink. The-ebook.org reports:

The new device is not an ebook reader as one would expect, but a tablet PC. 12.7mm (1/2") thin device will run Windows 7. It will have a touch screen and use multi-touch technology.

Technical details:
CPU: Intel Atom Z530 1.6G 512KB L2 533MHz
RAM: DDR2 2GB
HDD: 120GB
Screen: TFT LCD, 8.9" wide, LED, 16:10, 1024x600
Wireless: Bluetooth, WiFi, (3G option available)
Expected battery life: 4 hours.
Weight: 670g

Expected retail price: $350-375
Street date: March 2010

07:07 AM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News and Commentary

If you can't count anymore on getting special attention by waving around a mainstream e-book reader, how about you try this little beauty straight from China. Dubbed GS601 E-ink, it looks different from any other reading device I've seen so far. Aside from that, the specs look rather mundane:

• Display: E Ink, 6-inch 800x600
• Size (in mm): 160x116x9
• Weight: 1kg (if true, it'd make it the heaviest e-book reader ever)
• Internal Memory: Flash?
• External memory: 1GB-16GB
• Connectivity: USB 2.0
• Battery: Lithium-Polymer 3.7V 1000mA
• Lifetime: "up to 20hrs" reading time or 16hrs audio playback
• Formats supported: TXT, DOC, PDB, PDF, JPG, BMP, MP3, WMA, APE, FLAC, AAC, WAV, OGG

When I tried to figure out the price through the order page, it would say zero yuan, so it doesn't seem to be available yet. Or, it's just a very good price.

Link to the product page: GS601 E-ink

Thanks to Lee for the tip!

12:14 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News and Commentary

Where do users commonly get their pirated e-books from? NYTimes columnist Randall Stross asked himself the question and so he hired an antipiracy organization from California to do a search on how many e-book copies of Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" were available free on the Web. They came up with 166 copies on 11 different sites; 102 of the copies were located at Rapidshare.

In case you don't know, Rapidshare is a hugly popular one-click hoster with headquarters in Switzerland, claiming to have storage capacity of several petabytes.

The Association of American Publishers agrees with the findings that Rapidshare is the big daddy for illegally sharing e-book content.

"As far as we can tell, RapidShare is the largest host site of pirated material," Mr. McCoyd [executive director at AAP] said. "Some publishers are saying half of all infringements are linked to it."

And Rapidshare's response? A spokeswoman said that her company wasn't responsible for content uploaded by its users, and that it's the publishers' responsibility to send take-down requests, requiring a link to each individual download address ("it's left to the publishers to find all instances of a given book title on RapidShare’s servers").

Rapidshare's advice to the publishers: to "give away most of their content for free" (as the popular rock group Nine Inch Nails did).

Read the full article: Will Books Be Napsterized? (registration required)

Thanks to Tim for the hint!