Lexcycle has been acquired by Amazon

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

Yeah, those $9.99 bestsellers are sure breaking my wallet. What's Fictionwise charging these days?

$9.95

[JSWolf]

Since it was going to be Stanza that supported ePub with eReader DRM, this might be a good move then since if that's squashed, that makes things better for ePub (infected with DRM).

[rhadin]

One noteworthy thing about Stanza -- it made Fictionwise available. Now that Fictionwise is owned by Amazon's biggest pbook competitor, Barnes & Noble, how long will Fictionwise be accessible via Stanza? My bet is not long "for technical reasons."

Will this now give a big incentive to B&N to move more rapidly into ebooks? If it does, will B&N be able to beat Amazon at its own game? Will B&N decide to be more open platform and adopt ePub, which could open a worldwide market. Lots of questions; no answers.

[ilovejedd]

Wasn't Stanza supposed to introduce support for Adobe DRM'ed pdf and epub, too?

I'm having misgivings about this acquisition. Feels like Amazon's trying to build itself a monopoly...

[Moejoe]

Interesting article over at Fictionmatters http://www.fictionmatters.com/2009/0...-and-lexcycle/

They're giving 1:2 odds that Amazon will perform a pre-emptive strike.

In an effort to keep Barnes and Noble from the iPhone and iPod Touch ecosystem, Amazon removes access to the Fictionwise Store (a B&N property) from Stanza, limiting the reader to public domain books and those available from stores like Smashwords.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Interesting article over at Fictionmatters http://www.fictionmatters.com/2009/0...-and-lexcycle/

They're giving 1:2 odds that Amazon will perform a pre-emptive strike.

Interesting article, but the author did not know eReader is already available for the iPhone.

[astra]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Smother it?

My first thought.

[carld]

Originally Posted by rhadin

$9.95

Only for some, I checked 6 bestsellers at random, 2 weren't available at Fictionwise, 1 was $9.95 and 3 were $21 or higher.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by rhadin

$9.95

Originally Posted by carld

Only for some, I checked 6 bestsellers at random, 2 weren't available at Fictionwise, 1 was $9.95 and 3 were $21 or higher.

And sadly it's a sale "for a limited time only".

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Does it? I thought that they had a Mac version, too.

The reader of the desktop version is pretty poor, it basically strips all formatting. They've focussed much more on developing the iPhone app, the desktop version is really just for integration with the iPhone

[KnownHuman]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Interesting article, but the author did not know eReader is already available for the iPhone.

Oh, I know about the eReader app from Fictionwise, I just think it's too distant from Barnes and Noble to make a solid association in the mind of your average book buyer. B&N could rebrand the reader, or create a stronger association with Fictionwise, but as it stands now B&N has near-zero mindshare, and is running a distant third in marketshare.

Glad you liked the article though. I did want to point out (and probably should do so in the article) that the odds listed are for entertainment purposes only. I thought that tapping into something numerical would provide a bit of levity.

Personally, I think that Amazon will likely put a squeeze onto the iPhone market, and that they're are attempting to brand the Kindle as the iPod or Walkman of eBooks. When that happens, I'll be pulling for Smashwords to come out with the emotional successor to Stanza.

[JSWolf]

eReader is too old a format with too many limitations and most eReader eBooks are poorly formatted with line spaces and no indents. It would do the world a lot of good if Fictionwise would dump eReader in favor of ePub without DRM.

[zelda_pinwheel]

hi KnownHuman, welcome to the forum ! and thanks for joining the discussion.

Originally Posted by KnownHuman

Oh, I know about the eReader app from Fictionwise, I just think it's too distant from Barnes and Noble to make a solid association in the mind of your average book buyer. B&N could rebrand the reader, or create a stronger association with Fictionwise, but as it stands now B&N has near-zero mindshare, and is running a distant third in marketshare.

Glad you liked the article though. I did want to point out (and probably should do so in the article) that the odds listed are for entertainment purposes only. I thought that tapping into something numerical would provide a bit of levity.

Personally, I think that Amazon will likely put a squeeze onto the iPhone market, and that they're are attempting to brand the Kindle as the iPod or Walkman of eBooks. When that happens, I'll be pulling for Smashwords to come out with the emotional successor to Stanza.

i suspect you're right about this, and i'll also be really interested to see what will happen next...

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

eReader is too old a format with too many limitations and most eReader eBooks are poorly formatted with line spaces and no indents. It would do the world a lot of good if Fictionwise would dump eReader in favor of ePub without DRM.

I understand your dislike for the format - but right at the moment I'm stuck reading on a PDA and both my Palm and my iPaq like eReader much better than Mobi. The app works pretty well, the DRM scheme is pretty reasonable, and its available on lots of platforms.

[Ankh]

So, the bets are on that Adobe will move, and soon, into iPhone/iTouch segment?