Yesterday Apple announced their latest plans for the iBooks platform. The event focused on textbooks and education. There were three main takeaways. All of which have their pluses and minuses. First, there is a new iBooks app for iOS devices. It looks slick with video, sound and other rich media embedded in the books. It’s [...]

No doubt the eReader sector is a tough business. One has to have the right balance of device manufacturing skills, end-user service, available titles, etc. Sony has been late to the show, even though they were an early mover. Their devices were over-priced and their customer-facing services and stores were cumbersome at best. But yesterday, [...]

Hello independent bookstore owner. I am Trav. I believe in what you do and what you add to my community. I am your customer… and I have tools. You need to wake up and start participating, so I know you’re still there. Here is one thing all independent bookstore owners need to be aware of [...]

The EBookNewser has a short Q&A with SmashWords founder Mark Coker. The whole print book pricing versus eBook pricing discussion is finally boiling down to some concrete ideas. I found it interesting that Coker can see a value divide between fiction and non-fiction: I think non-fiction can support a higher price than fiction because people [...]

You can now download and read free ebooks from the JCLC OverDrive system, on the iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. I’ve been doing this for two weeks now, and other than a lack of sleep from all of the reading, I have had no issues. This week I finished up two paper books and three [...]

I’m a fan of the ebook lending program the JCLC has going. It’s great. But I also would like to have the ebooks to go and not have to lug the laptop everywhere. I’ve tried txtr and BlueFire Reader both of which say they work with Adobe Digital Editions, but have had no luck (apparently [...]

Yesterday, I ran across this great (and way too short) video about the future of the desk. The next item in my feed yesterday was coverage of this week’s Books in Browsers 2010 summit, where the Internet Archive showed off what they have dubbed the Reading Desk 2.0. Basically, it’s an antique church reading desk [...]

It is 11pm and I just checked out a book from my local library. This week the JCLC system turned on its Overdrive-powered eBook network. So far it’s very very cool. The only complaints I have are tied to the CRAZY complicated hoops Adobe Digital Editions (which you will have to download) has in place. [...]

Here is the slide deck from my presentation at the June IPSA meeting. I only wish there was a way for me to display the Q&A that followed, the questions were great and just what one would expect from a room full of technologists, when the subject is ebooks and book publishing. Book Publishing 2.010 [...]

There is a TON of information online about books and the ever-shifting landscape of publishing. It just takes so long to sift through everything to find something of worth, that you could actually use. But there are four conversations I always check in on, via Twitter. Sometimes I look back through the conversations, days after [...]