How to Win the Ebook War

burningthepage

[Editor's Note: Former Amazon manager Jason Merkoski, one of the early leaders of the company's Kindle team, is the author of the new book Burning the Page: The Ebook Revolution and the Future of Reading. This excerpt is reprinted with permission.] Ebook innovation is a game of cat and mouse. Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of… Read More…

Video game vet creates books you can play with, reaches $10K Kickstarter goal in 4 days

vidyabookssmall1

It all added up for Joe Booth. Having spent 25 years in the video game industry at places like Microsoft, Electronics Arts and Ubisoft, the England-born veteran had learned the ins and outs of the gaming world. He is also dyslexic. For his entire life, reading and writing haven’t come easy. And as a father… Read More…

Paper trumps tech at national library conference

Public Information Kiosk's book vending machine.

I went looking for the digital future of libraries at the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting this week. Conveniently, the conference was held in Seattle, near a couple of very forward-looking library systems that make eBooks, mobile apps and digital downloads expected, almost routine. But if the exhibit hall represented the near future for libraries,… Read More…

Why eBooks won’t rule the Earth

ipadbooks

The certainty in the headlines is almost palpable. “eBooks Now ‘Dominant Single Format’ in Adult Fiction Sales,” shouted book publishing site GalleyCat. “Kindle ebook sales have overtaken Amazon print sales,” trumpeted UK’s The Guardian. “E-book revenue outstrips hardbacks in first quarter,” trembled The Bookseller. But if these stories led to you to believe that the… Read More…

Kindle Touch to launch in Europe April 27

kindlesmall

Amazon’s Kindle Touch will finally make it across the pond to Europe, five months after its U.S. launch — but not the advertising-subsidized version. The BBC is reporting that April 27 is the launch date of the touchscreen-driven Kindle in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy. However, notes the Beeb, “there will not be… Read More…

Amazon adds DRM to ‘DRM-free’ Harry Potter eBooks

Pottermore_Harry_books

Those expecting to unwind with all seven Harry Potter volumes in glorious, DRM-unencumbered pixel are likely in for a disappointment, according to early buyers. An original announcement about the pending digital publication of J.K. Rowling’s epic said Rowling’s Pottermore site, “will sell DRM-free eBooks of the series for the first time.” Apparently, not exactly. Nate Hoffelder of… Read More…

Can ebooks fuel innovation? Startups explore the potential

Kindle-4-Puzzazz-sudokuss

A group of startups met up this week in Redmond for the first Ebook Innovation Summit, a small gathering of companies involved in different aspects of the electronic book business — spending the day demonstrating their latest projects and talking about their common challenges. The summit highlighted the emergence of an innovative segment of the startup… Read More…

When eBooks attack, mass paperbacks die

kindle79

The mass market paperback is dead. It just doesn’t know it yet. Ailing for months, its demise is now all but assured by Amazon’s recent bold announcement. Not the over-analyzed, over-iPad-compared Kindle Fire announcement. Rather, by the far less interesting news – to the gadgetphiles – that the least expensive, wonderfully readable and portable Kindle… Read More…

Startup Spotlight: Bluefire looks to spark eBook sales

Micah Bowers

More consumers are turning to electronic reading devices. And Seattle’s Bluefire Productions, which emerged from founder Micah Bower’s 10-year-old design and development services company last year, is looking to help booksellers make the transition. Bowers is at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week, showcasing the company’s iOS and Android applications for publishers and booksellers. The… Read More…

Michael Hart, inventor of the eBook, dies at age 64

Hart (Wikipedia Photo)

Tacoma native and electronic book pioneer Michael S. Hart has died at the age of 64. Before Kindle, Nook or iPad entered the lexicon, Hart was tinkering with electronic books. In 1971 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Hart created Project Gutenberg with the goal of making electronic copies of books available to the public. It became… Read More…