07:43 AM by garygibsonsf in E-Book General | News

Until now I've not particularly commented on discussions on MobileRead about ebook pricing, at least partly because a few of them seemed based more on wish-fulfillment and a misunderstanding of the skills required not only to write a book, but also to identify whether or not it's in fact publishable, then to edit it if it is (a process rather more complicated than crossing t's and dotting i's), design it, and ultimately find a way to get it to the people most likely to want to read it. But even lthough I'm part of the business, I have no great personal awareness of the actual related costs of the industry.

However, I stumbled across this fascinating article co-written by the ex-CEO of Random House which does indeed seem to suggest ebooks at lower prices might become the way forward. I'm a wee bit wary since there are CEO's of major corporations out there who believe the internet is made of tiny tubes, nonetheless to hear someone on the business side of publishing at its highest level advocating lower prices strikes me as of more than casual interest and certainly worth evaluating:

"Publishers will not disappear, though their role will inevitably alter. Certain ancillary activities like warehousing, shipping and distribution, production, and inventory management will need to be stripped away. Other activities like editorial and consumer marketing will become, if anything, more important in the digital world. Lost in the doomsdayer debate about publishers’ future is that their unique role as intermediaries has always been about discovering and promoting talent and content—rather than printing and distributing. There is life after print death for publishers, but only in a streamlined and refocused configuration, working constructively with online retailers and authors to ensure that book reading is not the ultimate loser in the digital revolution."

To my own mind there is the possibility that books might become too low in price (six to eight dollars strikes me as about right, and some of the prices on Fictionwise and elsewhere are indeed outrageous). Skilled people involved in publishing apart from just the writers - editors, promotional staff, literary agents, designers, artists, and so forth - need adequately compensated for their work. That means there needs to be a certain level of returns on books to reward their work. However, I have reason to believe the kind of digital revolution discussed here is still quite a ways off; ebook sales still represent only a tiny proportion of sales relative to those of p-books, but perhaps there's rather less excuse now or in the near future for $25 ebooks.

04:40 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

OK, gang. As prospects of languid days at the beach begin to dance in our heads, so do thoughts of all the other things that make such days so pleasant - a little chair to separate us from the torrid sand, a big hat and smooshy lotion to fend off the nastiest rays and, of course, a bunch of thrilling e-books to read on a sleek reading device.

Hence we thought, let's kick off summer together with a fabulous giveaway! With a little bit of luck, you can win a new e-book reader of your choice to stock up your beach-ready gadget bag.

The giveaway prize

An e-book reader of your choice from the following selection:

• Amazon Kindle 2
• Sony Reader PRS-700
• Sony Reader PRS-505
• Bookeen Cybook Gen3
• Endless Ideas BeBook 1
• Ectaco jetBook
• Any other e-book reader in the same price range

Two restrictions apply: The winner must pick a device that is officially purchasable in his or her country and the store must accept either PayPal or international credit card as forms of payment.

Winning is simple...

First leave a comment below stating that you want to enter this giveaway. In your comment fill us in as to why it should be YOU to win the e-book reader. Then head over to the E-book devices forums and participate in discussions on the device which you would like to win. Feel free to talk about anything that is related and that could benefit others. Helping others is always smiled upon, and a definite trump card.

Down to the details:

• You may enter only once
• To enter, leave a comment below stating that you want to enter this giveaway. Tell us why it should be you to win the e-book device
• Participate in our E-book devices forums
• The giveaway begins today and ends on June 26th 2009, at 11:59 PM EDT
• One winner will be selected in a random drawing amongst the eligible entries
• If you are chosen, you will be notified via private message. Winners must respond within seven days of the end of the giveaway. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen
• The winner will receive, subject to local availability, one (1) Amazon Kindle 2; OR one (1) Sony Reader PRS-700; OR one (1) Sony Reader PRS-505; OR one (1) Bookeen Cybook Gen3; OR one (1) Endless Ideas BeBook 1; OR one (1) Ectaco jetBook; OR one (1) other e-book reader in the same price range

Good luck, and let the party begin!

PS: We'll have some extra surprise prizes for those who come up with the most original reasons for winning this contest.

PPS: Extra kudos to everyone who tweets about this giveaway and includes a link in their tweet!

MobileRead team members are not eligible to participate

04:03 PM by CommanderROR in E-Book General | News

We haven't heard anything new from the German, Berlin based startup textr for a while...well...until today.

A press release just found it's way into the mailbox giving us some very tasty news indeed.
The press release is in german, so I'm not posting the original here, but I'll try to translate as accurately as possible:

When the txtr eReading device gets officially introduced on the Frankfurt Book Fair 2009 txtr will also be offering the largest selection of commercial ePub documents (on the german market) to date.
Thanks to cooperation with the most important content aggregators for optimized digital content the txtr online community will be offering more than 200.000 commercial ePub documents in it's integrated online shop. In addition, there are already over a million free digital documents available at textr.com.

That is the main part of the press release. There is a pdf (in german) with a little more text which I'll be attaching to this post.

Comment ahead!

01:45 PM by lilac_jive in Miscellaneous | Lounge

EDIT: If you are just now reading this, the date and location has been set:

Saturday, 27 June
6:00 pm
Mango Mike's (Google Maps)
4580 Duke St
Alexandria, VA

I know there was one in the works, has anyone started a discussion about this?

If not, we are now (*evillaugh*). I'm from PA, but I grew up in VA so I'm pretty familiar with NOVA and wouldn't mind jumping down there. First place that comes to my mind is Reston Towne Center, but heck, it's Virginia and there's a million and one places to go.

Who'd be interested? If you aren't, please give your address so we can beat you with DesertGrandma's stick

12:55 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

Apologies for the short downtime you may have experienced when visiting Mobileread in the past thirty minutes. One of our backends died at 12:00 -0400 and we are still investigating what went wrong.

Alex

07:06 AM by zelda_pinwheel in E-Book General | News

According to the International Digital Publishing Forum (idpf) and the Association of American Publishers (AAP), E-Book sales have continued to show growth in an overall struggling industry, with more than 200% increase compared to last year.

Trade E-Book sales were $12,100,000 for April, a 228.3% increase over April 2008 ($3,700,000).

Calendar Year to Date sales are up + 154.8%

Interesting to note it wasn’t until Q3 2008 that any quarter surpassed the $12,000,000 mark when total Q3 sales reached $13,900,000.

Previous high for any single month was March 2009 with wholesale trade sales of $10,000,000

View the complete statistics, historical data and information about the numbers here.

These figures only show part of the picture (see below) however they are extremely encouraging and tend to confirm that E-Books are finally coming into their own.

Please keep in mind the following:

* This data represents United States revenues only
* This data represents only trade eBook sales via wholesale channels. Retail numbers may be as much as double the above figures due to industry wholesale discounts.
* This data represents only data submitted from approx. 12 to 15 trade publishers
* This data does not include library, educational or professional electronic sales
* The numbers reflect the wholesale revenues of publishers
* The definition used for reporting electronic book sales is "All books delivered electronically over the Internet OR to hand-held reading devices"
* The IDPF and AAP began collecting data together starting in Q1 2006

06:38 AM by Hatgirl in More E-Book Readers | Interead COOL-ER

That's what this article claims!

On the horizon: Branded COOL-ERs with retail partners, a larger format color screen eBook reader, which could be ready as soon as Christmas (and a target price under $300), a book publishing division of the company called COOL-ER Writing, and a new out-of-the-box pricing structure which is said to make the COOL-ER reader affordable to virtually anyone.

Considering they went from conception to prototype in 3 weeks for the "basic" Cool-er, this may actually be a quote rather than a misunderstanding by the reporter.

08:32 PM by jgray in E-Book General | News

In some recent emails to Ectaco, I make some suggestions about improving their firmware. I also mentioned these forums and the growing number of users here.

In the latest email from Ectaco, I learned some very good news. With permission, I am posting that news here. The next Jetbook firmware will include FBReader version 0.10.7 (the current version). Ectaco will be doing some "internal Q&A on June 16" and the release of the new firmware is "expected in 1-2 weeks after that".

I don't know whether my suggestions had anything to do with this, or perhaps Ectaco was already working on incorporating the latest FBReader into its firmware. In any case, this is good news for Jetbook owners.

Assuming that Ectaco incorporates the full functionality of FBReader and doesn't strip anything out, we should see support for additional ebook formats (notably HTML). We should also see some CSS support, which will be a major improvement in the display of epub and mobi.

I am looking forward to the new firmware and am happy to see that Ectaco is actively improving the product. If I learn anything further, I will post.