Here is the critical question for us avid readers: Which e-reader or tablet is the best for reading books?
“So I set out to try them all, reading a chapter on each: the Amazon Kindle, the first- and second-generation Apple iPads, the Barnes & Noble Nook, an iPhone, a Windows Phone, a Google Android phone, a Google Android tablet and a laptop computer. To be fair, I also read a chapter in that old-fashioned form — a crumply old print paperback.”
Amazon is now offering “daily deals” on Kindle books. Competing against the likes of Groupon, this idea seems long overdue and welcome news to avid readers.
Yes, let’s hope that Amazon continues to offer book deals across a wide range of genres.
Click here for More details on the new Amazon program. Here is a link directly to the Kindle Deals page.
As ebook sales have skyrocketed in the past several years, publishers have searched for ways to improve on the digital editions of their books. In 2010 enhanced e-books with video and audio were all the rage, but sales for many enhanced e-books were dismal, and the books were often expensive to produce.
In the movie “Pride and Prejudice” the music jumps and swells at all the right moments, heightening the tension and romance of that classic Jane Austen novel.
Will it do the same in the e-book edition?
Booktrack, a start-up in New York, is planning to release e-books with soundtracks that play throughout the books, an experimental technology that its founders hope will change the way many novels are read.
On a recent Go bus trip from Hamilton to Toronto, more than half the approximately 50 passengers had their noses buried in something.
Two of them were reading books. A handful of people were busy texting or using an app on their smartphones. One young kid, who looked to be about seven, played a video game and at least eight people seemed to be just staring at their electronic devices.
They were… [READ THIS COMMENTARY]
On July 26 of this year, following pressure from Apple that it would begin strenuously enforcing its 30 percent commission rate, Amazon and Barnes & Noble announced they were shutting down their in-app sales. Customers were instead instructed to go to the Internet and buy directly from their respective websites.
Amazon just released the new Kindle Cloud Reader for quick and easy reading right in your web browser.
There are already free Kindle apps out there, but Kindle Cloud Reader extends the popular digital book store and library to PCs and tablets that run browsers based on HTML 5. This includes Safari on iPad and desktops as well as the desktop version of Google Chrome.
Currently not much is known about Amazon’s tablet. What is known is that it will feature a 9” – 10” touch-screen, a powerful application processor and will be based on Google Android operating system. It is expected to be released in two months.
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, the device will be designed by one of the contract manufacturers of electronics, but its successor due in 2012 will be developed by Amazon itself.
A 2011 survey found the majority of book club members still prefer the printed book, 25.5 percent reported using an e-reader in 2010, compared to 15.6 percent in 2009. The Amazon Kindle leads the way among e-reading book club members, with 59 percent owning Kindles. The Nook ranked second at 29 percent. Almost 20 percent read e-books on tablets such as the iPad.
An interesting fact noted by… [GET THE STATS HERE]
How much do e-books benefit when they hit the Nook and Kindle bestseller lists? A lot, new findings suggest. Meanwhile, the New York Times bestseller list appears to have less effect on e-book sales.
“We found that there is a significant benefit to making these lists, and that benefit is far stronger for e-books than it is for print, where titles rise and fall in sales rank far more frequently,” he writes. “In fact, e-books that rise high on the bestseller list can normally look forward to a far longer time on the list than an equivalent print book.” [LEARN MORE]
…If you want your brand to be represented in Google+, just wait for a couple of weeks and the official offer described above will come your way. And bear in mind this is only the beginning since Google teams are working hard to roll out new content types (games, music) and functionality (Questions).
Yes, lots of opportunities are coming to Google+ for brands. Be prepared authors. [READ THE FULL ANALYSIS OF +1]
Heading to Saratoga Springs, NY this summer for a little horse racing? A stop to browse at the local bookstore in the heart of town may not be in the cards, as that location is part of the Borders bankruptcy.
“It has nothing to do with Broadway in Saratoga,” said Todd Shimkus, president of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce. “It has everything to do with the fact [that] bookstores are a dying breed, at least at that large-scale type of commercial operation.”
Shimkus and others said it will be a challenge to find other tenants, but the empty store won’t stop other investments downtown. [READ THE FULL ARTICLE]