05:21 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

It's not a secret that Amazon keeps sales figures for its Kindle line of tablets, well, a secret. Fortunately, some analyst from Morgan Stanley got his crystal ball out of its magic cupboard to give us some estimates how well Amazon's Kindle business is really doing. AllThingsD reports:

In a report released last week, Morgan Stanley said it estimates that Amazon will sell $4.5 billion worth of Kindle e-readers and tablets this year, up 26 percent from 2012.

Growth will slow next year, when the business will do $5 billion in sales, Morgan Stanley estimates, followed by similarly modest growth in 2015, when Amazon will do an estimated $5.5 billion in Kindle sales.

$5.5 billion a big number, but not that big if you keep in mind that, in 2012, Amazon's total revenue was a whopping $61 billion, with forecasts for 2013 somewhere between $73 and $76 billion.

And e-books? Again, the shiny crystal ball has the answer:

Morgan Stanley estimates that Amazon will do $3.8 billion in digital media revenue this year, and that the business will generate more revenue than device sales next year - with an estimated $5.7 billion in revenue.

In total, Morgan Stanley estimates that the Kindle ecosystem - which also includes advertising revenue of $192 million - will account for 11 percent of the company’s total revenue this year, but 23 percent of its operating profit.

[image by anurag agnihotri via Flickr]

04:27 PM by tubemonkey in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

This is a spinoff from another thread meant to inform more people about borrowing magazines via Zinio from public libraries.

Recorded Books Partners with Zinio to offer Digital Magazines at Public Libraries

June 22, 2011 -- Recorded Books, the world’s largest independent producer of audiobooks, has announced that it will begin distribution of the popular Zinio digital newsstand to public libraries in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. “Zinio for Libraries” will allow public library patrons to read, interact with and explore the largest selection of magazines by just using their library card.

Think of this as the OverDrive for magazines. According to this article, there are over 1,400 libraries offering this service; so there's a strong chance a library near you may have it. At least five of my libraries do. Just like the number of ebooks varies from library to library, so do the number of magazines. If one your libraries doesn't have a particular magazine, then another might. It pays to belong to as many libraries as you can.

So, how do you download them? First, check to see if your library offers Zinio. Look for it in the digital download section. Next step is to set up your accounts. You'll need a library account and two Zinio accounts. It's quite easy. See the following for help:

Tutorials / Help

• Zinio How To
• Zinio Borrower Overview (18 min video)
• Zinio User Guide
• Zinio Help

Borrowing Facts

• no due dates - magazines can be kept forever
• no check out limits - you can check out as many magazines as you want
• no automatic renewals - you must check out every magazine you want
• no back issues - except those you've previously checked out
• can be read offline - just download to your device
• no device limits (that I'm aware of yet)

These magazines can be read on multiple devices via the Zinio app. They're stored in Zinio's cloud and can be downloaded and removed as often as you want.

Just remember to borrow magazines from your library's Zinio portal and not directly from Zinio. The two are not the same. Your library will only have around 200 magazines in its collection compared to over 5,500 in Zinio's. If you've previously purchased magazines from Zinio, the magazines you borrow will show up alongside them. Essentially, you're getting free magazine subscriptions; as long as you check out the latest issue. There's no ability to borrow issues you've missed; you'll need to purchase them.
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03:56 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

Did you miss last week's $120 deal on refurbed NOOK HD+ tablets? Well, thanks to Digital Reader we learned that Groupon is giving you another chance to get the device at the same discount - namely $30 off the standard price.

Link to the Groupon offer: here

Still undecided about your next tablet or e-reader purchase? Make sure to keep an eye on this thread where MobileRead tubemonkey meticulously follows current deals on tablet devices in the US.

02:04 PM by chaley in E-Book Software | Calibre Companion

After many weeks of work, the latest release of the Calibre Companion is ready to test. This is a major release, containing many of the features most asked for by users:

- A cover grid view
- combined grouping and book lists on tablets
- easier transition between grouping and viewing lists of books
- More information in the action bar

and many (!) other changes.

As we have changed so much, we think that it is prudent to make this release available to people willing to test it.

Some notes:
- This is a fully licensed version of CC. You must have purchased CC to run it.
- There is no database schema change so it is possible to go back a version, but it isn't particularly easy to do.
- It is possible that there may be "crashing" bugs in this test version. We have run it a lot, but everybody does things a bit differently so we might have missed some corner cases.

If you are willing to test, send me a PM with an email address and I will email you the APK today or tomorrow. You must be able to install manually the APK, something that most file managers do handily.

Please post your comments on this thread. We are particularly interested in crashes, clearly incorrect behavior, and things that are confusing. Of course we will listen to comments on appearance and artwork, but we may not act on these before general release.

The user interface now uses a variant of the "drawer" that Google is using in the new versions of its apps. In particular we are using the drawer that Google is using in their "hangout" app.

In the drawer paradigm, there are two parts to the screen, the part normally visible and the part that is shown when you "open" the drawer. The grouping functions are inside the drawer, seen when it is open. If there is sufficient screen space then the drawer is always open. If there is not sufficient space then you slide the drawer open when you need it, and shut it when you don't.

The screen shots below will (I hope) make this drawer notion clearer:

First, these 5 images are from a Galaxy Nexus:

The following 5 images are from a Nexus 7. You can see that in landscape the drawer is always open, while in portrait the book data is partially visible when the drawer is opened:

And these last 4 are from a Galaxy Tab 10.1:

01:51 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Only two months after the Kindle Paperwhite was officially released to Chinese territory, another device, the Tianyibook e-reader, is up for grabs. At 849 yuan (~$140), it is priced exactly as the Kindle. The advantage of the Tianyibook (also called Skytel e-reader), so we were told, is the number of available e-books (Amazon: 40,000 versus Tianyi: 300,000) and the lower average cost per e-book.

Specifications:

• Display: 6" E Ink capacitive touch, 16 grey levels
• Resolution: 600x800
• RAM: 256B
• Storage: 4GB (expandable with Micro SD)
• CPU: 600MHz
• Formats: epub, pdf, fb2, oeb, html, txt, ztxt, tcr, prc, pdb, chm, rtf, mobi
• Battery: 1700mAh
• Connectivity: WiFi
• Dimensions: 161x112x8.3mm
• Weight: 190g
• Prize: CNY 849 (~US $140)

[via cctime.com (Chinese)]

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

It's time again for our roundup on all the stuff we posted on our frontpage this past week.

E-Book General - News

• Is Sony readying the PRS-T3? PRS-T2 on sale for $99
• Mysterious Samsung Daynote - destined to challenge Amazon?
• Kindle Fire HD on sale for $159
• NPR - E-Books Strain Relations Between Libraries, Publishing Houses
• Bezos buys Washington Post. Really.
• Adobe Digital Editions 2.0.1 is out
• Android E Ink e-reader "Crema Shine" launches in Korea
• Amazon, Kobo and Sony request e-readers be exempt from accessibility laws
• Amazon could be working on next-gen e-paper display
• OverDrive Media Console with new Gui and Bookmark Sync
• Spoiled Kindle experience: too much sloppy content
• Barbara Mertz died age 85
• Google's cure to spinal problems: textbooks in Play store unveiled (US only)
• Amazon trying to unlock Russian book market
• Researchers stack E Ink paper like real paper (video)
• Indie bookstores resurgent
• calibre V0.9.43 released
• Next-gen Kindle Fire specs revealed (yes, the "baby" Fire)
• DOJ reiterates need for Apple punishments; gets support from Kobo

E-Book General - General Discussions

• Disruption through online book sales - is Germany next?
• Chain-reading e-books? You could be an e-book addict
• kobobooks.com doesn't give format anymore?
• 10 reasons why "real" books are better than e-books, supposedly
• Publishers object to DOJ proposal; it would punish them rather than Apple

E-Book General - Deals, Freebies, and Resources (No Self-Promotion)

• NOOK HD+ 16GB for $120, refurbished
• 50% off on any Packt e-book (exp. 08/15)

E-Book General - Writers' Corner

• Library skips publisher, goes directly to author

E-Book Readers - Amazon Kindle

• Kindle DX on sale for $239. Still worth it?
• Kindlets development: Absolute beginner's guide

E-Book Readers - Apple Devices

• Adobe Reader 11 for iOS lets you convert PDFs, if you pay for it
• iBooks app in latest OS X Mavericks developer preview!

E-Book Readers - Barnes & Noble NOOK

• Nook HD and HD+ now officially supported by CyanogenMod

E-Book Readers - Kobo Reader

• Kobo Firmware 2.8.1: pass or fail? (poll)

E-Book Software - Sigil

• Sigil V0.7.3 released

Miscellaneous - Lounge

• Aussies launch anti-CAPTCHA petition. Is it time to kill CAPTCHAs?

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• Love Facebook and Mobileread? We need you!

04:30 PM by TadW in E-Book General | News

After leaked specs of the next-gen Kindle Fire HD, here are the leaked specs of the non-HD, entry-level variant aka the baby Fire, as I like to call it.

• CPU: 1.5GHz dual-core Texas Instruments OMAP4 4470 processor with PowerVR SGX544 graphics
• Screen: 1,280 x 800 pixels
• RAM: 1GB
• Android: 4.2.2 JB

Source: BGR. They further report:

The new entry-level Kindle Fire might not be as impressive as Amazon’s next-generation Kindle Fire HD lineup, but it packs significantly more punch than the current base model and our sources say that Amazon will likely offer it at the same price point: just $159 for the 8GB version. Amazon will also offer two new versions of the tablet, we’re told — one with 16GB of storage and one with 32GB — though pricing is unknown at this point.

Link to the report: http://bgr.com/2013/08/09/amazon-kin...ecs-exclusive/

04:20 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

For those of you who have spent the last few days in an isolation chamber, the DOJ is proposing an injunction prohibiting Apple from making pricing deals for five years and allowing e-book app vendors to link to their own stores for two years. Meanwhile, the five publishers who had previously settled in the e-book pricing case, ganged up once again, this time with a legal brief opposing the proposed penalties against Apple. Though this might have backfired a little. The Verge reports:

One thing's clear: the DoJ isn't pleased to see the publishing industry again uniting so soon after the major case. "There is reason to believe the publisher defendants may be positioning themselves to pick things back up where they left off as soon as their two-year clocks run," the letter says. This in and of itself justifies Apple's five-year penalty, which Buterman says will "ensure that Apple (and hopefully other retailers) can discount ebooks and compete on retail price for as long as possible."

Kobo shows that it could have been done differently. As Publishers Weekly notes today:

Meanwhile, the DoJ got some support for its proposed final order, in the form of Amicus briefs from Kobo, and from The Consumer Federation of America.

Notably, Kobo’s brief in support of the DoJ puts it odds with its retail partner—the American Booksellers Association, through which Kobo facilitates e-book sales. [...]

In its brief, however, Kobo says the DoJ injunction would help Kobo and the indies—especially through the requirement that Apple allow e-book retailers to link to their own e-bookstores for two years without paying a commission to Apple on sales.

Which is not really a surprise given that Kobo has invested quite some time and money lately in renovating their online book store. The PW article cites some convincing numbers showing how Kobo suffered from plummeted sales after Apple introduced its in-app store rules.