Archive for the ‘eReader Contests’ Category
New Kobo contest no comments
Kobo started another eReader giveaway today. This contest runs through July 17, 2011 and will give away two eReader Touch Editions with leather cases and $50 Kobo gift certificates. Any customer purchasing an ebook from Kobo during the contest period is automatically entered in the contest. For complete details see Kobo.
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Amazon Xoom giveaway no comments
Amazon is giving away a Motorola Xoom tablet along with some other prizes in a contest to promote the Amazon Prime program. To enter, just go to the “Sweepstakes” tab at Amazon’s Facebook page and click on the “Like” button. To have a chance to win the Xoom you will need to enter by May 1. After that Amazon is giving away other prizes each week, including a Kindle 3 with lighted cover and $50 gift card for the May 16 thru May 22 period.
The contest will end on June 19, 2011 at midnight PST and is limited to US citizens.
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Free ebooks for Kindle & other ereaders no comments
Here are some more temporarily free ebooks for the Kindle and other ereaders:
Almost Perfect (Perfect Trilogy) by Julie Ortolon (4 1/2 stars/19 reviews) Romance.
Delivered with Love by Sherry Kyle (3 1/2 stars/8 reviews) Contemporary fiction. Also free at Barnes & Noble.
Winners Never Cheat: Even in Difficult Times, New and Expanded Edition by Jon M. Huntsman (4 1/2 stars/33 reviews) Ethics. Also free at Barnes & Noble.
15 Successful Communications Lessons (Collection) by FT Press Delivers (4 stars/3 reviews) Business. Also free at Barnes & Noble.
Options for the Beginner and Beyond: Unlock the Opportunities and Minimize the Risks by W. Edward Olmstead (4 1/2 stars/21 reviews) Investing. Also free at Barnes & Noble.
Shattered: A Daughters Regret by Melody Carlson (no ratings) Fiction from a faith-based publisher.
Mobile DNA: Finding Treasure in Junk by Haig H. Kazazian (4 stars/6 reviews) Biology. Also free at Barnes & Noble.
The Personal Credibility Factor: How to Get It, Keep It and Get It Back (If You’ve Lost It) by Sandy Allgeier (3 1/2 stars/3 reviews) Nonfiction. Also free at Barnes & Noble.
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OverDrive is giving away a Sony Pocket Edition ereader to celebrate National Library Week. The contest is easy to enter (read the details on the OverDrive blog) and ends on April 15, 2011 at 8 PM EST.
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A couple of paid reading ideas:
Heart of a Knight by Barbara Samuel (4 1/2 stars/10 reviews) is an historical romance that has just made it onto the Kindle bestsellers list in the last few days. $0.99.
Britain, 1351. After an arduous exile to flee the darkness and danger sweeping her lands, Lady Elizabeth D’Auvers returns home to Woodell Castle, yearning only for her looms and her quiet life. To her astonishment, she finds the castle and farmlands thriving, thanks to Lord Thomas of Roxburgh, a knight errant whose size and strength offer protection to Elizabeth’s castle and its people.
Lord Thomas’s warm gaze makes Elizabeth’s flesh burn with unaccustomed fire, and her defenses crumble, leaving her heart as vulnerable as her trembling body. Yet chilling thoughts trouble her mind. For there is something dark and mysterious about this man—a secret that makes him as forbidden to desire as he is impossible to resist.
Godchild by Vincent Zandri (4 1/2 stars/13 reviews) Thriller. Another recent addition to the Kindle bestsellers list. $0.99.
Prison-warden-turned-P.I. Jack "Keeper" Marconi understands the criminal mind. And he knows what it takes to break a man. His own life came apart the day a black Buick broadsided his car–and his wife died horrifically in the seat beside him.
Years later, on the eve of his second marriage, Marconi catches a split-second glimpse of the driver who killed his wife. Suddenly hurtled back into the past, he is determined to take one last shot at hunting him down. That is, until he is offered a job he can’t refuse: to bust a beautiful woman out of a hellish Mexican prison. Now Keeper’s chase through Mexico follows a trail of bodies and lies back home: to the truth about a woman on the run, to a man sitting behind the wheel of a black Buick, and to a story that someone will kill to bury….
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Kobo Spin to Win contest no comments
Kobo has a new contest going on. Prizes in the Spin to Win contest include Kobo discount coupons (10% – 50% off), Kobo gift cards, 15 Kobo Wi-Fi ereaders and a grand prize of a vacation package at a Fairmont Hotel of the winner’s choice. No purchase is necessary and the contest will end on March 20, 2011. You can see all of the details and enter at Kobo.
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Amazon Kindle Facebook giveaway no comments
Amazon is giving away 10 Kindle 3G ereaders at its Kindle Facebook page. The sweepstakes will end on Mar. 31, 2011. To enter you need to become a fan — by clicking the “Like” button on the Kindle Facebook page, which will take you to the sweepstakes entry page.
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Free Kindle ebooks – 03/06/2011 no comments
Here are a few more free Kindle ebooks. These all seem to be free exclusively at the Kindle Store:
Immigrants by Howard Fast (no ratings) Historical fiction.
Wild Sight by Loucinda McGary (4 1/2 stars/15 reviews) Romantic suspense.
Best Little Stories from the Civil War: More than 100 true stories by C. Brian Kelly (no ratings) History.
Highest Stakes by Emery Lee (4 1/2 stars/25 reviews) Historical romance.
Fallen from Grace: A Bonus Dark Mirror Short Story by M.J. Putney (no ratings). A bonus Dark Mirror short fantasy story. Pre-order; due Mar. 15.
Turned at Dark: A Bonus Shadow Falls Short Story by C. C. Hunter (no ratings). Vampires. Pre-order; due Mar. 15.
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Read an E-Book Week starts today and runs through March 12, 2011. 
This year marks the fortieth year that ebooks have been around. In 1971 Michael Hart digitized the Declaration of Independence. From this grew Project Gutenberg. Read an E-Book Week was started 7 years ago by author Rita Toews to celebrate digital reading and to promote digital publishing.
The Read an E-Book Week site is giving away 3 Kobo eReaders and a Nook in a drawing to celebrate the event. Author Steve Jordan is also having a drawing to award two e-ink watches.
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Kobo Promotions no comments
At the moment there don’t seem to be any eReader giveaways at Kobo, but the ebookstore is offering discounts on selected ebooks until the end of September. You can find the list by clicking on “Cheap Reads” on the promotions window at Kobo.com.
There is a Kobo eReader giveaway revolving around the launch of the book Lancelot’s Lady by Cherish D’Angelo. Entering this involves you leaving a comment on one of the blogs/websites associated with the author’s book tour, which kicks off today. You can read the full details on the press release.
Ironically, Kobo does not seem to have this ebook at the moment — the only places I can find Lancelot’s Lady is at the Kindle Store and at Smashwords.
This is the video trailer for the book Lancelot’s Lady:
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eReader & Tablet News 8/28/2010 no comments
A roundup of some of the news from the past few days.
Amazon is selling more of the Wi-Fi only version of the latest generation Kindle 3 than the model with 3G. This according to the Bestsellers in Electronics pages
Graphite seems to be the hot color. The white 3G + Wi-Fi is third place on the bestsellers list in the US, but not in the top 10 in the UK. In the US the Kindle DX appears at number seven on the list.
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Apple has released iWork Update 4, one of the features of which is the ability to export from Pages in the standard ePub format. More info at the Apple support pages.
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Kobo has announced that you can now import your own PDF and ePub documents and ebooks into the Kobo iPhone, iPad and iPod touch apps. This means that you can add books from other sources, as long as they are unencumbered by DRM.
Kobo also says that the Samsung Galaxy is now a supported device on which you can read your Kobo books.
Kobo has added an iPad to its various sweepstakes prizes. This particular contest will end on August 31, 2010. Each ebook you purchase is an automatic entry. For more info and other details, such as how to enter without a purchase, see Kobo.com.
Besides the new contest, Kobo also has a $2 off discount coupon code – 2dollardeal – which should work on all ebooks except those published by Hachette, Grand Central, Warner and Little Brown. This coupon will expire at midnight August 31, 2010.
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You may remember back at the beginning of the year that LG Display unveiled a large format flexible epaper display based on the same metal foil technology that the Skiff ereader was supposed to use.
PCWorld has found an SEC filing by LG Display for 9.7-inch and 19-inch flexible color epaper displays. Only speculation on what plans exactly LG has up its sleeve for these displays, but 19 inches would be large enough to display a newspaper quite nicely.
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Wireless charging coming for the iPad and Kindle? Harvest free energy from the ether? GoSolarUSA, Inc. announced that it is working with PREE Corp to configure the proprietary PREE wireless charging technology so that it can be used with the iPad and Kindle. From the press release:
The PREEcharge technology captures electrons from LAN and Bluetooth waves and converts it into power to recharge batteries for wireless devices. The technology also incorporates a small solar panel to augment the charge with solar energy. To date, the entire product development has been focused on configuration for use with smaller wireless devices such as Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone, Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android, and Research in Motion’s (NASDAQ: RIMM) BlackBerry. Now with the funding from GoSolarUSA, PREE will be able to accelerate the development of the PREEcharge for use with wireless PC tablets.
“Why are the iPAD, Kindle and other PC tablets ideal for the PREEcharge?” asked Mr. Rohde. “The answer is simple,” he continued. “The surface area of an iPhone is 10.39 square inches, and the surface area of an iPAD is 71.41 square inches. More surface area means bigger circuit boards, more antennas for receiving wireless signals, and ultimately a lot more power. In fact, if this proportion holds, the PREEcharge could have the potential to generate seven times more power for the iPAD than it makes for the iPhone,” he concluded.
By no means is this a new idea. Products to charge our devices by harnessing energy from Wi-Fi and other signals have been in the works for some time, but don’t have a good track record when it comes to actually making it to market.
One of the relatively unsung gadgets at CES 2010 was 
the Airnergy charger from RCA. The Airnergy harvests energy whenever it comes into contact with Wi-Fi signals and stores it in an internal battery. You can then use the Airnergy to recharge your devices at your leisure.
RCA had working demos at CES and the device was said to be coming to market this summer for around $40. The last I saw about the Airnergy (sorry, can’t find it now) was that RCA was still planning to release it later this year, but I’m not holding my breath. Where’s Tesla when you need him?
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iStoryTime publishes illustrated and narrated ebooks for young children on the iPad and iPhone as well as for Android devices. A new title for the iPad and iPhone – Danny the Dragon: Meets Jimmy – is the first iPad book for the deaf. The ebook includes sign language narration. $2.99 at iTunes. (via NYT)
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Another new interactive children’s iPad book app was announced by Touchoo. Thumbelina is based on the classic Andersen fairytale and is available in English, Spanish, French, German and Japanese. Available at iTunes for $1.99 until August 31, after which time the price will go up.
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A few days ago Sony had an event to introduce some of the company’s new products. I was hoping that Sony would take the opportunity to unveil their new ereaders, but unfortunately this didn’t happen. If you are interested in what new gadgets were revealed, PCMag has a picture gallery and details.
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Amazon “Your Kindle Commercial Contest” no comments
Amazon is having a contest in which you can submit your own homebrew Kindle commercial for a chance to win a $15,000 Amazon.com gift card.
Commercials need to be 30-seconds or less and are due by August 29, 2010. The top 50 entries will be selected by an Amazon judging panel based on creativity, overall appeal and the likelihood of making viewers want to rush out and buy a Kindle ereader or download a free Kindle app.
The successful submissions should effectively communicate the Kindle reading experience. The commercials may focus on one or more features, be brand focused, or communicate the emotional connection many customers have with their favorite books. Additionally, ads that talk about free Kindle reading apps and customers’ ability to buy a book once, and read it everywhere are welcome.
Out of the top 50 entrants, the Grand Prize winner and up to four Semi-Finalist winners will be chosen by a second judging panel. Winners will be announced on September 20, 2010. The Grand Prize winner will receive a $15,000 Amazon.com Gift Card and Semi-Finalist winners will each receive a $2,500 Amazon.com Gift Card.
Please see the Your Kindle Commercial Contest page
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Barnes & Noble Adds Rentals to Its Textbook Offerings; NOOKstudy Sweepstakes no comments
Barnes & Noble announced today that in addition to offering higher education students digital textbooks and new and used paper texts, it will also begin renting textbooks. The new textbook rental service will be available through the Barnes & Noble Website.
B&N’s previously announced NOOKstudy program is also available from today. To celebrate B&N is having a sweepstakes – the Barnes & Noble College Giveaway Sweepstakes – which will give a $5,000 cash prize to one winner. Students who download NOOKstudy through October 29, 2010 will be automatically entered in the contest. See the NOOKstudy page for more details and non-purchase route of entry.
