Archive for the ‘amazon vs penguin’ tag
Ereader and iPad News – 5/27/2010 no comments
Kindle coming in black? CrunchGear has a rather poor quality photo that alleges to be a black Kindle spotted at a photo shoot. It makes sense that Amazon would offer color choices at some point.
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Borders announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2010 today. While the second largest bookstore chain saw its loss narrow in the first quarter, traffic and sales in its stores fell. Revenue in the US fell 16 percent. Border’s share price fell 7 percent today in an up market.
Borders is placing a lot of hope in its digital initiatives. Borders.com was in fact a bright spot in the first quarter with sales increasing by 34.7 percent. The Kobo-powered Borders ebook store will be launching next month, and pre-orders are already being taken for the Kobo eReader. Next week pre-orders for a second ereader will begin and more devices will be added in the near future. An Apple reading app will also be introduced by the end of June.
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Penguin and Amazon have finally reached some sort of agreement and Penguin’s new ebooks will once again be available in the Kindle Store. Since the Agency Model went into effect on April 1, 2010 none of the 150 or so new Penguin ebooks published since then have been available for the Kindle.
Ipad News
Kobo announced today that its iPad reading app is now available in all iPad markets with regionalized versions available for Canada, UK, Australia and a version for New Zealand coming soon. From the press release:
Kobo, a global eReading service, today announced availability of its popular iPad application in all markets where iPad is available. Additionally, Kobo today released regional versions for Canada, UK and Australia and announced a New Zealand application is coming soon. The regionalized applications, built specifically for the iPad, feature local content, merchandising, and currency. All Kobo iPad applications come pre-loaded with five eBooks and connect to the Kobo eBook store, which features more than two million titles including current best sellers, classics, and thousands of free titles.
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Wired Magazine finally released its app for the iPad, and reportedly sold 24,000 copies in the first 24 hours. The Wired app looks pretty amazing, but it is a big file (about half a gig) and costs $5 per issue – a print subscription in the US is $10 per year. The reviews at the iTunes store do contain some grousing about the price, but obviously a lot of work went into this. This is the way magazines should be done. So far I like it.
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MacLife is reporting that Apple is making it possible for authors to self-publish in the iBooks app for the iPad. There are some requirements: books have to have a 13 digit ISBN, must be in ePub format, must validate against epubcheck 1.0.5 and cannot contain any unmanifested files. Authors can choose which countries qualifying books are sold in and set the prices.
Possibly Related Posts:
One Free Kindle Book; Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Finalists Announced no comments
There is one new free book available for pre-order at the Kindle Store:
Vicious
Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Finalists
When I first saw the words Amazon and Penguin Group in the title of a press release I was hoping that the two had resolved their pricing dispute which has kept new Penguin titles out of the Kindle Store since the Agency Model pricing plan took effect on April 1, 2010. That would have been very welcome news indeed.
No such luck, although this announcement does impart some very good news for the six finalists for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award which is cosponsored by Amazon, Penguin Group (USA) and CreateSpace. From the press release:
From now through June 2, Amazon customers can vote for their favorite work at www.amazon.com/abna after reading excerpts from the finalists’ respective novels in the general fiction and young adult fiction categories. The two grand prize winners of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, who will each receive a publishing contract from Penguin Group (USA) which includes a $15,000 advance, will be revealed in Seattle on Monday, June 14, 2010.
A panel of noted publishing professionals have read the top six finalists’ novels and written critiques of each, posted at www.amazon.com/abna. These industry figures include bestselling authors Tana French, Sarah Dessen and Nancy Werlin; Amy Berkower, president of Writers House, LLC; Julie Barer, of Barer Literary, LLC; Molly Stern, editorial director and executive editor of Viking Books; Ben Schrank, president and publisher of Razorbill.
The top three finalists in the general fiction category, listed in alphabetical order by author’s last name, are:
Jennifer Handford, Warrenton, Va., for "Fortune Cookies"
When Handford, a financial advisor, adopted a daughter from China in 2003, the process went remarkably smoothly, but the aspiring writer in her wondered what might have been. Several years of late-night writing sessions later, Handford had the novel, "Fortune Cookies," which asks the question: what if a family adopted a child and only later learned that the child suffered extreme emotional or developmental problems from her time in the orphanage? In "Fortune Cookies," a Washington, D.C.-based power couple find themselves in just that predicament, along the way exploring the world of adoption and the nature of the bond between parents and children.
Patricia McArdle, Arlington, Va., for "Farishta"
McArdle is a retired American diplomat whose postings have taken her around the world, including northern Afghanistan. In "Farishta"(the Dari word for "angel") American diplomat Angela Morgan, whose career is in free-fall, is ordered against her will to a British Army outpost in Mazar-e-Sharif, where the soldiers and interpreters are not pleased to have a female in their midst. Frustrated at her inability to contribute to Afghanistan’s reconstruction, she leaves camp without permission wearing a burka to work with refugee women. Her well-intentioned actions incur the wrath of warlords and further complicate her relations with her military colleagues. "Farishta" brings to life the soldiers and civilians who are fighting for survival in this ancient and troubled land.
Johnny Shaw,Portland, Ore., for "Dove Season"
Shaw was born and raised on the Calexico/Mexicali border, the setting of his novel, "Dove Season." Shaw owned a bookstore in Los Angeles, which is now entirely online, and he works as both a screenwriter and a university lecturer teaching screenwriting. Only recently did Shaw feel that he had the distance he needed to write a novel about the people and places of his childhood home, the Imperial Valley. In "Dove Season," Jimmy Veeder returns to his hometown on the California/Mexico border, where his attempt to satisfy his father’s highly unusual dying wish–for a Mexican prostitute named Yolanda–leads him into a world of murder and corruption.
The top three finalists in the young adult fiction category, listed in alphabetical order by author’s last name, are:
Amy Ackley, Brighton, Mich., for "Sign Language"
Ackley is a mother of three whose career has run the gamut from public administration to labor relations for top automakers. At the age of 16, Ackley left home and began supporting herself. She began writing "Sign Language" seven years ago. Drawn from her personal experiences of losing a father and two friends to cancer, "Sign Language" is the story of a 13-year-old girl whose father’s battle with cancer sends her into an emotional tailspin from which she is determined to recover.
Alex Airdale, Nutley, N.J., for "Service of the Crown"
A native of Russia, Airdale moved to the United States at the age of nine. Throughout her teens, she rode horses, fenced, and read Tamora Pierce fantasies about strong female warriors. Airdale –a pseudonym–combines these three pastimes in her young adult fantasy novel, "Service of the Crown," a coming-of-age story about 16-year-old Renee, a student at the Realm’s top military academy who battles her male classmates by day and an underground crime group by night.
Alison Stewart, Sydney, Australia, for "Days Like This"
Stewart, a journalist and writer who loves to travel, was born in South Africa. Over the years, her travels took her to Australia, where she met her husband and had two children. Many years ago, a fortune teller predicted that Stewart would write a book set in the future that would take her "all the way to America!" Her dystopian novel, "Days Like This," is a cautionary tale set in a walled, futuristic Sydney, where young people, confined to their homes under a nameless dictatorship and in danger from their parents, must escape to survive.
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