Tag Archives: ebooks

Penguin teams up with Readmill on booksharing app

The Guardian UK is reporting that Penguin UK has teamed up with the Berlin-based ebook app developer Readmill to bolster direct ebook sales.  From the article:

The app allows readers to share ebook highlights and to talk to each other while they’re reading, “liking” one anothers’ updates and discussing the books.

The deal includes more than 5,000 digital titles – Penguin UK owns digital rights to works by authors such as Zadie Smith, Hari Kunzru, and John Updike, as well as Morrissey’s Autobiography. People who buy ebooks from Penguin.co.uk will have the option to “send to Readmill”. The arrangement sidesteps Amazon’s Kindle and means that Penguin can retain more data on customers.

The free app, designed for iPhone, iPad or Android phones, lets readers share highlights, and supports digital conversations about books by linking reading to social media. Readers can use the app to update Facebook and Twitter when they begin reading a book, if they want to highlight passages or when they finish a book.

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Bowkers continues to fight it’s growing marginalization by publishing silly fact-light statistics

Yes, another quarter … another weird Bowkers “report.”

On October 9, 2013, Bowkers issued a ‘report’ with gems like:

“…The analysis shows the growing prominence of a handful of companies that offer publishing services to individual authors.  More than 80 percent of self-published titles came to market with support from just eight companies, including Smashwords and CreateSpace…”

and

“…Ebooks continue to gain on print, comprising 40 percent of the ISBNs that were self-published in 2012, up from just 11 percent in 2007…”

You can read the whole “report” HERE.

It’s important to note, however, that ebooks sold through eRetailers like Amazon don’t require ISBN numbers.  The vast majority of ebooks on Amazon – the world’s largest retailer of ebooks – use ASIN numbers, which are Amazon’s own internal numbering system.

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Calvin and Hobbes FINALLY available as eBooks

Thirty years.  It’s taken Thirty FREAKIN’ years, but Calvin and Hobbes is no available in eBook form!

The Essential Calvin and HobbesThe Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes, and The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes. Books I proudly have in my physical book collection can now be read on your Kindle, iPad, Nook or tablet.

Sorry, Scientific Progress Goes “Boink” isn’t available … yet.

The weekday comic strip has been available on gocomics for awhile. These new books, though, are the first time the books have been available to eReaders.

So take a trip down memory lane and relive a childhood memory today.

The books are available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple’s iTune bookstore.

Amazon Source – the best of both worlds

Now customers don’t have to choose between eBooks and their favorite bookstore!

Indie bookstores can now work hand-in-hand with Amazon to confront the changing world of publishing.  Bookstore owners often see ebooks and ebook readers as an adversary – and Amazon as the ultimate evil and destroyer of bookstores worldwide.  That’s never been the case; without books and bookstores, Amazon wouldn’t exist.  To work with bookstores, Amazon has started a new program that offers discounted Kindle hardware and a percentage of future ebook sales to booksellers who sell the hardware.

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Discount Books Daily Launches Curated Email Newsletter for Book Lovers Seeking Discounts and Variety

Daily email offers subscribers discounted eBooks, paperback books and audiobooks in various genres.

Discount Books Daily is a daily email newsletter for book lovers looking for deep discounts on genre-specific audiobooks, eBooks and/or paperback books. Membership is free and subscribers gain access to books from traditional publishers as well as top-notch independent authors. The vision is simple: make interesting, discounted books (in the genres and formats readers prefer) that are easy to find and easy to purchase.

Discount Books Daily aims to provide readers access to deeply discounted books without forgetting one truth: readers need and want choices. “We’re a team of readers. And though we have that in common, what we read and how we read is quite different. I might download a new book onto my tablet, but my partner Miles, who is a new dad, gets his best reading done listening to audiobooks during his work commute. There are also people like my husband who enjoy touching the cover of a book, dog-earing the pages and placing a book on their bookshelves. We don’t want to forget them,” says co-founder Tina Patterson.

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