12:22 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book Formats | ePub

The new IDPF EPUB e-book format standard is taking the world by storm. Think of it as the analogy to the Adobe .pdf format, but for flowable text, so it can display well on any size screen from a PC to a phone. Plus, a standard for the container format, so multiple document files can be distributed together in a zip archive.

Okay, so maybe "taking the world by storm" is a bit of an exaggeration at this early stage, but it's certainly gaining as much momentum as could possibly be hoped for, much of which is a result of the enthusiastic and substantive support from Adobe. But, it's clear that one critical success factor for EPUB is the ability of e-book creators to create a well-formatted EPUB e-book, which is compatible with a wide range of software and devices. Coincidently, that's a great interest of many MobileRead members as well.

So I'm very happy to report that Adobe is furthering that goal, by providing the following:

(1) An EPUB Best Practices Guide white paper, created by the Digital Publishing Team at Adobe (attached in EPUB format). There is also some background information about the format that may make it of interest to non-technical readers as well.

"By following the best practices in this Guide, you will be able to produce EPUB files, compatible with the IDPF EPUB specifications, that will look great for consumers, regardless of whether they are reading your content on desktop PCs, mobile phones, or other reading devices."

If you haven't already, you will probably want to download Adobe's Digital Editions software to read the document.

(2) A web site (http://www.adobe.com/devnet/digitalpublishing) with "the latest information from Adobe on Digital Publishing".

Nick Bogaty of Adobe, who kindly tipped us on this information, says that the site will launch Wed, March 26, 2008 (looks like it's already live to me), and that it will include "access to information on Adobe Digital Editions, Adobe Digital Experience Protection Technology, Adobe InDesign CS3 and other tools and scripts that Adobe provides to help create, distribute and consume both PDF and EPUB digital publications."

It will be interesting to hear feedback from some of the practitioners here after they dissect the information with the benefit of their experience and expertise.

01:36 PM by Lima_dat in E-Book General | News

Has anyone seen the O.O.S. notice on the Bookeen website?

Pretty straightforward notice, I think. No monkey business.

04:10 PM by NatCh in E-Book Readers | Sony Reader

This is a couple of days old, but it bears a formal recognition. I was so excited about it at the time that I forgot all about announcing it.

Baen's Webscriptions service has added Sony Reader (LRF/BBeB) format as one of their downloadable formats.

Please join me in appreciating their efforts.

Also, this is a good point to note that this probably wouldn't have happened (certainly not so quickly) without the existence of libprs500, so a nod of appreciation in that direction is probably also in order.

06:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

My goodness, is it Sunday again? Well, for those of you who've missed the highs and lows of MobileRead over the past seven days, this is your one-way ticket to catch up:

E-Books - News

• Sony Reader coming to the UK on April 4th!
• "Reading things electronically is a dissatisfying experience" - Publisher crying
• Arthur C. Clarke dies at age 90
• BusinessWeek: Significant increase in e-book sales in 2007
• Amazon Kindle out of stock again - back in a few weeks

E-Books - Elsewhere on the Net

• Booklamp Beta launched

E-Book Devices - Amazon Kindle

• The Kindle cake, mmm sweet!!!

07:21 AM by rhadin in E-Book General | News

According to this week's print edition of Business Week (March 24, 2008), e-book sales increased 59% in 2007 over 2006 based on wholesale U.S. revenues of trade book publishers. That's a significant increase, particularly when compared to the less-than-stellar increase (actually a slight decline) in p-book sales.

Also of interest are these statistics from the same page: Americans ages 20-34 spend on average 10 minutes a day reading for pleasure. Those 35-44 spend about 13 minutes; 45-54 spend about 19 minutes; 55-64 spend about 32 minutes; and 65-74 spend about 46 minutes.

07:09 AM by searcher in E-Book General | News

Today, on Amazon's frontpage:

Dear Customers, We had high hopes for Kindle before its launch, but we didn't expect the demand that actually materialized. We sold out in the first 5 ½ hours and have been scrambling to increase our manufacturing capacity ever since. We've been shipping on a first-come, first-served basis, but many customers have had to wait as long as six weeks after ordering. We hope to be able to announce to you within the next few weeks that we are back in stock and that when you order a Kindle, we'll ship it to you that very same day. That's our goal: order today, and we ship today. Until then, customers can order now, and they'll be first in line. For those of you who've waited six weeks to get your Kindle, you have our sincere thanks for your patience. Many of you have written detailed and thoughtful customer reviews, and we're grateful for that too.

I found this delectable-looking Kindle cake on the web - it's the ultimate geek compliment!

Happy reading.
Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO

Btw, the cake Jeff is talking about can be found here.

06:38 AM by searcher in E-Book General | News

Will We Need Books In 10 Years?

Many experts have predicted that we will soon be using a portable digital reading device such as Amazon's e-reader, the Kindle - which has been called 'the iPod of reading'. However, Pack isn't one of them.

"Reading things electronically is a dissatisfying experience. And I don't think that will ever completely be cracked by technology."

Link: Sky News

05:10 AM by wallcraft in More E-Book Readers | iRex

A 15 minute video review of the iRex Iliad by GottaBeMobile is on blip.tv. If you have never seen an iLiad in person this gives a good idea of what it is like, but the reviewer clearly does not use it routinely. An earlier Video Head to Head of Kindle and Reader got mixed reviews here.