Category Archives: Publishing Industry News

Just try it — Reading on an iPhone

Seriously folks, let’s all give reading a book on an iPhone a try. I mean it’s free and eBooks and digital publishing aren’t going away. So, just try it. You don’t have to like it. In fact, you may not. Which is fine. But at least you’ll know.

So, if you have an iPhone, just do this:

1. Download the Amazon Kindle app, from the App Store. It’s free.

2. Find a free book to download, I recommend starting with fiction. I read about five non-fiction books for every one fiction. But I have found that it’s easier to read on the small screen if the book is written to pull you along, rather than making you stop, think, take notes, etc. So for my non-fiction books I’m still a traditional pBook kinda guy. (I’m reading The Templar Legacy. Not exactly five-star, but it is fiction and free as of right now).

And I know I do my fair share of not-so-fond of Amazon posting, but these steps are quick and painless. There are a ton of other eReading options as well. Here is a fantastic post about reading books on the iPhone. All of the apps mentioned in that post are worth your time to download and check out!

Let me know what you think, if you give it a go.

I Bought an iPhone3GS and Now I Want to Read

Not sure if you looked up in the sky last night, but a rare astronomical event occurred as planets aligned with soon-to-expire cellphone contracts and only a 5-minute wait at the local Apple store… so after many months of waiting… I finally got my iPhone. I spent the evening getting my gMail and Google Apps affairs in order, downloaded a cool typographic wallpaper and now I’m ready to read.

I haven’t bought a book yet, but I grabbed these iPhone apps and a few freebie books to page? flick? thumb? through. What I’m asking is… what reader/app am I missing? I’m coming late to the game and I want to start with everything in the arsenal and then weed out the slackers. So, my iPhone book reading slate on Day One is…

Barnes & Noble Store
Barnes & Noble eReader
Kindle for iPhone
Stanza
Fictionwise’s eReader
Shortcovers
BeamItDown book of Benjamin Button
Iceberg book of Jame’s Patterson’s Maximum Ride

Of course, some of these are eReaders and others are books as apps, which should be fun to try and see what bells and whistles are available. So let me know of any free or paid apps that I need to add. True, I am always looking for good reads, but this time I’m looking for who is getting right and who is presenting the best reading experience on the iPhone platform. Though not my usual genre, I hear I need to check out some Harlequin material, as they have been leaders in the digital space for over a year now, but what else am I missing?

This is going to be fun!

Barnes & Noble eReader for Mac – My Thoughts

So I downloaded the free Barnes & Nobel eReader 1.0 this morning, to check it out. I’m on a Mac and was glad to see that B&N rolled out versions of the readers for iPhone, Blackberry, PC and Mac all at the same time. That’s a good move.

The first thing I tried to do was open some pdf’s, mobi, epub and prc files…

Continue reading Barnes & Noble eReader for Mac – My Thoughts

eMedia vs. Print Media

This was being passed around Twitter today. It made me laugh and sums up a lot of bloggers (and books) I’ve read lately. I wish everyone would just admit things are shifting. Even, drastically shifting, would be fair. But traditional printed media isn’t going away. Though many of the traditional print media business models are. That’s where the excitement is!