Archive for the ‘eBook Stores’ Category
Borders News no comments
Borders is in the news today, and not all of it is good. Borders will be closing its King Street store in San Francisco. This at the same time as Barnes & Noble is closing its landmark store near Lincoln Center in New York City.
Both bookstore chains are struggling, though Barnes & Noble looks to be much more likely to survive. Just as the bookstore chains put many small independent bookstores out of business in the past, they themselves are now under pressure from online booksellers.
Even as bookselling chains move to digital sales they are faced with another conundrum – what to do with empty floor and
shelf space as they carry fewer physical books? Indigo Books has said it would be filling its empty shelves with trinkets. Borders is now said to be planning on replacing some of its children’s book sections with Build-a-Bear kits. These are kits for children to build and personalize their own stuffed animals. I’m not so sure that Borders’ salvation lies in becoming the next dime store chain.
Borders also announced today that it is launching a new paid “Borders Rewards Plus” loyalty program. Borders customers can now choose from a free rewards program or a paid program which costs $20 per year and offers savings on most merchandise as well as free shipping on virtually all online orders.
- Members of the free, enhanced program will receive 30 percent off the list price of hardcover bestsellers and free shipping on online orders of $25 or more.
- Members of the Borders Rewards Plus program will receive 40 percent off the list price of hardcover bestsellers, 20 percent off the list price of select hardcovers, 10 percent off the purchase price of most everything else — and free shipping on virtually all online orders.
As with Barnes & Noble’s loyalty program, the discounts do not apply to ereaders or other electronics, although it appears that you can take discounts off of some ebooks at Borders, which you cannot do with the Barnes & Noble Membership Program.
To promote the new program, Borders is offering double “Borders Bucks” to members on their purchases through September 6, 2010. Borders is also offering an additional discount to teachers:
As part of its longstanding commitment to supporting educators, Borders has made its Rewards program more teacher-friendly. Upon the program’s launch, teachers who are currently Rewards members will receive a personal shopping day where they will enjoy a 10 percent discount off the purchase price on top of the 25 percent discount they already receive on eligible items. In addition, beginning Oct. 1, parents, friends and families can donate Borders Bucks they’ve accrued to their favorite teacher. The teacher can then use the donation to buy classroom supplies.
Borders has also lowered the prices of some of the ereaders that it carries. The Kobo eReader is still $149.99, but it comes with a $20 gift card, which effectively lowers its price to $129.99. Still not a good deal at this price when compared to the Kindle 3 in my book. Borders is also selling the Aluratek Libre for $119.99, the Sony Touch for $139.99 and the Sony Pocket Edition for $119.99. Borders will also be carrying the Cruz Tablet and Reader from Velocity Micro.
UPDATE: Borders has lowered the price of the Kobo eReader to $129.99 without the gift card. The Aluratek Libre has also been lowered to $99.99.
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Mobcast Launches European eBook Shops Through Mobile Operators no comments
Mobcast has launched a new ebook service in Europe that enables mobile operators to sell ebooks to customers who are then billed through their mobile phone account.
T-Mobile and Orange UK are the first service providers to use Mobcast’s new digital book platform. Currently ebooks purchased through the service can be read on Android and smartphones, PCs and ereaders. Support for iPhone and iPad is expected to follow later in the year.
Mobcast CEO Tony Lynch said: "After developing this platform for two years we know from our own customer data that they love reading books on their mobile phone and a large percentage go on to purchase multiple books per month. The majority of our revenue comes from repeat customers. The latest version of the Mobcast platform allows the operators to offer a full book shop experience to millions of their book loving customers."
Mobcast says that it expects to launch similar digital book platforms with international retailers and operators over the coming months.
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Connecticut AG Having a Look at Amazon and Apple eBook Pricing no comments
Richard Blumenthal, attorney general of Connecticut, has sent letters to both Amazon and Apple expressing concern that their agreements with publishers may block competitors from offering ebooks at a lower price.
Apple and Amazon have both negotiated agreements with the largest publishers that include “most favored nation” (MSN) provisions that are designed to ensure that the two resellers receive best prices over competitors.
After the introduction of the so-called “agency model” of ebook pricing many titles are offered at the same price regardless of where one shops. Blumenthal is concerned that consumers are adversely affected as other resellers are effectively blocked from offering lower prices than Apple or Amazon.
“These agreements among publishers, Amazon and Apple appear to have already resulted in uniform prices for many of the most popular e-books — potentially depriving consumers of competitive prices,” Blumenthal said. “The e-book market is set to explode — with analysts predicting that e-book readers will be among the holiday season’s biggest electronic gifts — warranting prompt review of the potential anti-consumer impacts.
“Amazon and Apple combined will likely command the greatest share of the retail e-book market, allowing their most-favored-nation clauses to effectively set the floor prices for the most popular e-books. Such agreements — especially when offered to two of the largest e-book retail competitors in the United States — threaten to encourage coordinated pricing and discourage discounting.”
Blumenthal notes that under US antitrust laws MFNs are not illegal per se, but neither are they per se legal.
Blumenthal has invited the two companies to visit his offices and discuss the matter. You can read the letters at the links above.
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New Graphic Novel Publisher to Focus on Bringing Content to Tablets; Square Enix to Launch Digital Manga Store in North America and France 1 comment
Luminous Books LLC is a new company that will be creating content for the iPad and other tablets. From the press release:
Luminous Books LLC, a newly formed company which will be delivering highly curated, rich-media content and periodicals to the tablet PC market, today announced that Andrew Cosby will be one of the first writer/producers to collaborate with the company on original content. The company chose to announce the collaboration prior to this year’s Comic-Con convention, because of Cosby’s highly successful work as the co-creator of Boom Comics and the Eureka Television series on the Syfy Channel.
"What Luminous is doing is incredibly exciting and fundamentally different from the other stuff I’ve seen in this category," stated Andrew Cosby. "It’s the main reason I decided to work with them. I’m all about breaking new ground, and they’ve developed an imaginative new approach to the medium, one that I’m convinced will allow us to capitalize on the truly transformative nature of these devices. Using the iPad and similar tablet devices, we will be collaborating on products which will engage parents and kids like never before. We’re talking about an evolutionary step forward in children’s media, and I’m excited to be part of it."
Luminous Books will be publishing graphic novels, comics, children’s books and other material. Initially the company will be focusing on the 8-12 year old market. The company does not appear to have a website as of yet.
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Square Enix announced yesterday that will be launching a digital manga store for North America and France this fall. From the press release:
Square Enix currently releases manga titles in 20 countries overseas through partnerships with local publishers. Series in circulation include Fullmetal Alchemist, with cumulative foreign shipments now surpassing 10 million units, as well as others that continue to garner worldwide acclaim, such as Soul Eater and Black Butler(TM).
Given the increasing popularity of electronic reading formats, Square Enix has decided to take advantage of the online distribution infrastructure originally developed for its games business, along with the company’s existing payment system and online fan communities in order to establish a paid digital distribution channel to better serve the varied needs of its global customers. Square Enix will continue to work with its existing regional publishing licensees to promote both electronic and print versions of titles, while aiming to deter piracy by establishing an official web-based distribution source.
Square Enix is offering free sample chapters of Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa, Soul Eater by Atsushi Ohkubo, Black Butler by Yana Toboso and O-Parts Hunter by Seishi Kishimoto at its North American and French websites.
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Kindle Store gets Exclusive Titles from Wylie Backlist no comments
Amazon announced today that Odyssey Editions – a new imprint of The Wylie Agency – will be publishing 20 iconic books from the publisher’s backlist. This is the first time that these titles have been published digitally, and they will be exclusive to the Kindle Store for two years.
The 20 ebooks from Odyssey Editions:
- "London Fields" by Martin Amis
- "The Adventures of Augie March" by Saul Bellow
- "Ficciones" (Spanish Edition) by Jorge Luis Borges
- "Junky" by William Burroughs
- "The Stories of John Cheever" by John Cheever
- "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison
- "Love Medicine" by Louise Erdrich
- "The Naked and the Dead" by Norman Mailer
- "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov
- "The Enigma of Arrival" by V.S. Naipaul
- "The White Castle" by Orhan Pamuk
- "Portnoy’s Complaint" by Philip Roth
- "Midnight’s Children" by Salman Rushdie
- "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" by Oliver Sacks
- "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" by Hunter S. Thompson
- "Rabbit Run" by John Updike
- "Rabbit Redux" by John Updike
- "Rabbit is Rich" by John Updike
- "Rabbit at Rest" by John Updike
- "Brideshead Revisited" by Evelyn Waugh
These titles are available at the Kindle Store
This is a nice step in the right direction. All publishers should be publishing their backlists digitally. Physical stores can only stock so many pbooks on their shelves, and this is a way for publishers and authors to be making money from their backlists and out-of-print titles, as well as providing readers with easy access to these books.
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eBooks, eReader & iPad News – 7/18/2010 1 comment
A quick look at some of the recent ereader and iPad news that I didn’t get to cover elsewhere.
App Inventor for Android
So you have an idea for a most excellent app for your Android device but don’t know how to program it? Well, now there’s an app for that. Google will soon have a beta version of App Inventor that easily lets you create apps with no programming knowledge by using a visual interface. The visual interface is said to make building an app easy for those who don’t know how to program.
The App Inventor comes with most Android functions available as modular building blocks, ready to plug into your creation. There are blocks for everything from using the GPS-location sensor or the phone features of your Android phone to blocks that perform more programming-like things such as storing information, repeating actions or performing certain actions under certain conditions.
Google will be opening up access to the App Inventor over the coming weeks. To get started you will need to fill out the online form at the link above.
via NYT
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iPad Software Update
Apple has released software update iOS 3.2.1 for the iPad. In addition to various bug fixes and improvements the following are addressed:
- Improved Wi-Fi connectivity
- Fixed an issue that could prevent copy and paste of single-page PDF attachments in Mail
- Addressed an issue that could cause video playback to freeze
- Improved reliability of video-out when using iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter
- Added Bing as an option for Safari’s search field
Compatible for both the Wi-Fi and 3G models of the iPad. To download the update connect your iPad to your computer and iTunes should detect and install the new software. You may need to click on your iPad in the left pane to get to the Update button on the Summary tab.
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3G nook at FCC
Barnes & Noble has applied with the FCC for a 3G version of the nook ereader. B&N’s internal project names for the 3G nook are CR Nook 3G and Bravo Delta 3G. There is not a lot of other info – schematics, photos and antenna specs have been withheld at the request of B&N. Too bad – maybe Apple could have learned something to improve the antenna of the new iPhone. 
via Best eReaders
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Neonode Signs zForce License Agreement
Neonode is an interesting touchscreen maker of very responsive IR-based touchscreens. The company announced recently that it had “signed a technology license agreement with one of the leading e-publishing companies in China in partnership with one of the largest ODM companies in Taiwan. The zForce license includes Neonode’s patented touch screen technology supporting high resolution finger navigation with gestures and sweeps.”
The last time I wrote about Neonode was when the company’s zForce touchscreen was to be used in one of the Chinese ereaders. That was just before Amazon bought TouchCo, which was a touchscreen startup.
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eBooks Becoming Big in Japan?
At the moment, most of the ebooks available in the Japanese language seem to be either manga or shorter light romance and porn. That could change soon. The Mainichi Daily News reported recently that NTT Docomo will be entering the ebook market in the early part of next year.
NTT Docomo is Japan’s largest cell phone carrier, and is most interested in marketing ebooks to its mobile phone customers. In Japan dedicated ereaders have never really taken off; most Japanese who read ebooks do so on their phones, which probably explains why a lot of the available ebooks are shorts. The introduction of the iPad to Japan may help change this.
Sony also recently announced that it was partnering with Asahi Shimbun Company (one of Japan’s largest newspaper publishers), Toppan Printing Co (one of Japan’s leading publishers) and KDDI Corp (telecommunications operator) to form an ebook distribution company.
Sony seems to be aiming its ereader business in other directions besides the North American market where it faces very stiff competition from Amazon’s Kindle and the Barnes & Noble nook ereaders.
A few days ago the WSJ JapanRealTime blog wrote that Dai Nippon Printing Co., LTD, which is one of Japan’s larger printing houses, is now also planning to open an ebook store by this autumn. The new store will offer about 100,000 titles from various publishers.
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Borders to Sell Paperchase no comments
Borders announced today that it has entered into an agreement to sell Paperchase Products Ltd. to leading UK-based private equity firm Primary Capital Ltd. Paperchase is a stationary retailer based in the UK. Borders stores in the US will continue to carry Paperchase products.
Borders will receive approximately $32 million, of which it is obligated to use $25 million to pay down its debt. There is still a very long tough way to go before Borders can climb out of its hole.
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Free eBooks with Borders App; Free Coffee at B&N 2 comments
Borders is offering $40 worth of free ebooks when you download the Borders reading application. The promotion lasts until July 14, 2010, and applies to the Borders app for iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, Android or desktop.
Borders® is delivering value to its customers by offering five free top-selling books valued at more than $40 to anyone who downloads a free Borders application beginning today, Friday, July 9 through Wednesday, July 14. These popular titles include Dean Koontz’s "Frankenstein: Prodigal Son," "One Shot" by Lee Child, "The Alchemyst" by Michael Scott, Julia Child’s " Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom" and "Master your Metabolism" by Jillian Michaels. Borders is also offering exclusive content readers can currently find nowhere else — chapter 6 of Danielle Steel’s upcoming novel "Legacy," which goes on sale Sept. 28.
Meanwhile, back at the Barnes & Noble campsite, you can get a free cup of coffee today by showing them which ebook you are reading with the BN eReader app on any device.
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Amazon’s Editors Pick Their “Best Books of the Year…So Far” 1 comment
Amazon has announced its annual Best Books of the Year…So Far. The books are chosen by Amazon.com Books editors.
"Our goal with Best of the Year… So Far is to create a list of books that transcend genre," said Daphne Durham, managing editor of Books at Amazon.com. "These are books that you could give to anyone, no matter what their taste, and this year you have a very global list to choose from–with settings ranging from China to Sweden, Vietnam to Baltimore. Narrowing the list of great reads for customers has always been one of our favorite activities, and 2010 has been an incredible year for books so far."
There are 10 top books chosen in four categories: Editors’ Top 10, Fiction, Nonfiction and Kids and Teens. The following are the Top 10 Books:
- "The Passage" by Justin Cronin: Just when you thought (or even hoped) vampires were dead, Justin Cronin’s grand, gorgeously written and terrifying new novel lands–with a 1,000-page thud–pulling readers into an American landscape ravaged by monstrous, mutated immortals.
- "The Irresistible Henry House" by Lisa Grunwald: Inspired by real-life "practice babies" (orphans who were used as teaching tools in Home Economics courses), Grunwald’s inventive novel follows the life of a child with many mothers and an inborn talent for making women love him.
- "Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory" by Peter Hessler: Hessler is a modest but intrepid observer of China and its dramatic change over the last 15 years, capturing the ambitions, the failures and the comedy of a country in which everybody, it seems, is on the move.
- "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest" by Stieg Larsson: The finest example of a book that saves the best for last, "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest" roars with an explosive storyline filled with revelations that make the end of this game-changing suspense series all the more bittersweet.
- "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine" by Michael Lewis: Of the many books about our economic meltdown, "The Big Short" is arguably the one to read, told from the perspective of a few iconoclastic thinkers who saw the collapse coming–and bet big on it.
- "Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War" by Karl Marlantes: A highly decorated Vietnam veteran himself, Marlantes takes readers deep into the jungles of Vietnam, giving us a new perspective on the ravages of war, the bureaucracy of the military and the peculiar beauty of brotherhood.
- "The Imperfectionists" by Tom Rachman: A fictional English-language newspaper based in Rome is the stage for this sensational debut novel from a former foreign correspondent who has crafted a story that’s as much about the disillusion in everyday life as the dissolution of a venerable industry.
- "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot: From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. From that same life, Skloot fashions a rich and haunting story that redefines what it means to have a medical history.
- "Just Kids" by Patti Smith: Smith’s memoir of her friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe is tender and artful, told in the style of her rock anthems and balanced by her memories of their bohemian youth.
- "The Lonely Polygamist" by Brady Udall: Beyond soap opera or sensationalism, Udall reveals the side-splitting slapstick, tragedy and redemption in the life of a man with many wives. His large-hearted story shows particular sympathy for the loneliest members of this crowded family.
The Top 10 Fiction:
- So Cold the River by Michael Koryta
- A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
- Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel by Hilary Thayer Hamann
- Magor Pettigrew’s Last Stand: A Novel by Helen Simonson
- Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
- The Ask: A Novel by Sam Lipsyte
- Where the God of Love Hangs Out: Fiction by Amy Bloom
- The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris
- The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell
- Rock Paper Tiger by Lisa Brackmann
- Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook by Anthony Bourdain
- War by Sebastian Junger
- Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann
- Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory by Ben Macintyre
- Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth by James M. Tabor
- Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben
- Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther Kind Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin by Hampton Sides
- Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour by Lynne Olson
- The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them by Elif Batuman
- Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline by Daniel Rosenberg
- The Necromancer (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel) by Michael Scott
- Will Grason, Will Grayson by John Green
- The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood
- Incarceron (Incarceron, Book 1) by Catherine Fisher
- The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan
- The Night Fairy by Laura Amy Schlitz
- Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce
- The Boneshaker by Kate Milford
- The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin by Josh Berk
- Bunny Days by Tao Nyeu
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Bookshare Achieves 100,000-Member Milestone; eBooks for the Visually Impaired 1 comment
Bookshare announced today that it now has 100,000 qualified members and has digital content contributed by more than 60 publishers and over 20 university partners.
Bookshare is the world’s largest online accessible library of copyrighted material for those with print disabilities. From the press release:
Through an exemption in the U.S. copyright law, (17 U.S.C. § 121) known as the Chafee Amendment, Bookshare serves a community of individuals with qualified print disabilities, such as visual impairments, physical disabilities or severe learning disabilities that affect reading. Proof of disability is required for membership. The library offers over 72,000 books, including K-12 textbooks, postsecondary textbooks, teacher-recommended reading, literature, children’s books, reference works, and newspapers and magazines. Members can download books in the latest DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) and BRF (Braille Ready Format) file formats.
Gayle Yarnall, Director of Adaptive Products for the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, MA joined Bookshare in February, 2008. “Bookshare has enabled me to pursue my favorite pastime – reading,” she said. “Imagine hearing about a new book and downloading it immediately. I can read exactly what my sighted friends are reading at the same time and take part in all those wonderful book conversations. My life and the lives of countless others are changed daily by Bookshare. I can’t thank you all enough.”
Qualified individuals can sign up to access the collection at the Bookshare Website, and publishers who wish to donate titles, universities who wish to join the Bookshare Partners program and persons or organizations who would be interested in donating their time are also invited to contact Bookshare.
