12:21 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) just released the sales figures for the domestic US market (press release). The total net book sales are up 2% at 1.54 billion dollars. Ebook sales, on the other hand, are up 213% over last July at 16.2 million dollars. (Ebook sales in June were 14 million dollars.)

10:29 AM by RWood in E-Book General | News

According to an email I received from a member of the eReader support team, the eReader software is in the process of being ported to the Palm Pre and other devices using the new Palm WebOS. No release date has been announced.

Mobipocket has not announced any new reader for the Pre. Even the prior reader extensions they announced last year have not yet come to market. MotionApps developed an emulator for running older Palm OS programs on the Pre and named it "Classic". This app allows one to run Mobipocket and eReader as well as Plucker on the Pre. They claim that the apps run twice as fast on the Pre as on prior Palms. Priced at $29.99, MotionApps offers a seven (7) day free trial.

10:12 PM by comtrjl in E-Book Software | Calibre

I think Kovid (and assistants) are to be congratulated on recognition from the royalty of the digital publishing world - Adobe Inc.
A new white paper on their website describes in some detail how to set up Calibre and use it to convert from epub to mobi, and thence to the Kindle.
The paper is here http://www.adobe.com/devnet/digitalp...ntokindle.html.

Nice going.
bob

04:53 PM by sforce in E-Book General | News

New Dan Brown novel tops 2 million mark

"Herz did say that around 5 percent, or 100,000 copies, of "The Lost Symbol" were sold as e-books. Doubleday released the digital edition at the same time as the hardcover despite industry worries that e-sales might take away business from the more expensive paper text."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/New-Da....html?x=0&.v=1

12:27 PM by jgray in E-Book General | News

For all those who wanted a DRM'ed ebook format on the jetBook, your wish will soon be coming true. According to my source, the "Barnes and Nobel" format will soon be added. I assume that this means the Fictionwise/eReader DRM format.

Although many like how eReader handles DRM, I could wish that either Mobipocket or Adobe's flavor of epub would have been selected as the DRM format to add. Mobipocket DRM would give you access to a large selection today. ADE DRM would probably be the better choice for the future IMO. Having said that, I await the day when DRM vanishes alltogether.

Pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if this revelation means that we will soon see B&N or Fictionwise selling jetBooks as well as the Plastic Logic reader?

12:11 PM by Nate the great in E-Book General | News

There's a really cool clip on Youtube:

09:29 PM by pilotbob in Reading Recommendations | Book Clubs

Help us select the next book that the Mobile Read book club will read for October 2009.

The nominations will run through Sep 27.
Voting (new poll thread) will run for 5 days starting Sep 27.

Book selection category for February per the "official" club opening thread is:

October
MobileRead Author

In order for a book to be included in the poll it needs THREE NOMINATIONS (original nomination, a second and a third).

How Does This Work?
The Mobile Read Book Club (MRBC) is an informal club that requires nothing of you. Each month a book is selected by polling. On the last week of that month a discussion thread is started for the book. If you want to participate feel free. There is no need to "join" or sign up. All are welcome.

How Does a Book Get Selected?
Each book that is nominated will be listed in a pool at the end of the nomination period. The book that polls the most votes will be the official selection.

How Many Nominations Can I Make?
Each participant has 3 nominations. You can nominate a new book for consideration or nominate (second, third) one that has already been nominated by another person.

How Do I Nominate a Book?
Please just post a message with your nomination. If you are the FIRST to nominate a book, please try to provide an abstract to the book so others may consider their level of interest.

How Do I Know What Has Been Nominated?
Just follow the thread. This message will be updated with the status of the nominations as often as I can. If one is missed, please just post a message with a multi-quote of the 3 nominations and it will be added to the list ASAP.

When is the Poll?
The poll thread will open at the end of the nomination period, or once there have been 10 books with 3 nominations each. At that time a link to the poll thread will be posted here and this thread will be closed.

The floor is open to nominations.

Official choices each with three nominations:

Flash Forward by Robert J. Sawyer
Description from Goodreads:
What would you do if you got a glimpse of your own personal future and it looked bleak? Try to change things, or accept that the future is unchangeable and make the best of it? In Flashforward, Nobel-hungry physicists conducting an unimaginably high-energy experiment accidentally induce a global consciousness shift. In an instant, everyone on Earth is "flashed forward" 21 years, experiencing several minutes of the future. But while everyone is, literally, out of their minds, their bodies drop unconscious; when the world reawakens, car wrecks, botched surgeries, falls, and other mishaps add up to massive death and destruction.
Slowly, as recovery efforts continue, people realize that during the Flashforward (as it comes to be called) they experienced a vision of the future. The range of visions is astounding--those who would be asleep in the future saw psychedelic dream landscapes, while others saw nothing at all (presumably they'd be dead). But those who saw everyday life 20 years hence have to come to grips with evidence of dreams forsaken (or realized). Soon, the physicists who caused the Flashforward are struggling to help the world decide whether the future is changeable--and whether the experiment is worth repeating. Robert J. Sawyer has captured a truly compelling idea with Flashforward, and he fully explores what such an event might mean to humanity. Fans will find this to be his best work to date, although the ending seems rushed after a detailed buildup. --Therese Littleton

The Tide Mill by Richard Herley
Synopsis here: http://www.richardherley.com/TM.html

The Moon and the Sun by Vonda McIntyre
1997 Nebula Award winner
Set in Versailles, France, in 1693, The Moon and the Sun tells the story of a Marie-Josephe, a lady-in-waiting to the niece of Louis XIV -- the Sun King. Marie-Josephe's brother, Father Yves de la Croix, is a Jesuit and also the King's natural philosopher and explorer. He has brought the King a living sea woman and a dead male, both captured on an ocean voyage. So begins a rich tale of conscience, politics, science, history, and love.
Available at http://www.vondanmcintyre.com/index-fiction.html

Verdant Skies by Steven Jordan
The summary is here: http://www.stevejordanbooks.com/novels/verdant.htm

Soul Identity by Denis Batchelder
You can't take it with you...but what if you could? Most people believe their souls outlive their bodies. Most people would find an organization that tracks their souls into the future and passes on their banked money and memories compelling. Scott Waverly isn't like most people. He spends his days finding and fixing computer security holes. And Scott is skeptical of his new client's claim that they have been calculating and tracking soul identities for almost twenty-six hundred years. Are they running a freaky cult? Or a sophisticated con job? Scott needs to save Soul Identity from an insider attack. Along the way, he discovers the importance of the bridges connecting people's lives.

11:09 AM by ProfJulie in E-Book General | News

Microsoft finally released an updated version of MSReader for Windows Mobile 6.0 & 6.1 devices (for .LIT books). You can learn about it and download it here.