ebooks-blog

“Online retail giant Amazon.com (NASD: AMZN) on Tuesday announced that it has signed a deal with best-selling author Stephen R. Covey, giving the company the exclusive rights to sell e-book versions of two of his titles on Amazon.com.”

This is an interesting deal.  Seems like these are existing books whereby Covey did not relinquish digital rights to Simon & Schuster?

I wonder how many other major authors are in this realm.  If this cuts like the music business, the book publishers will stop making deals with authors unless they give up ebook rights.

Certainly from Amazon’s perspective this is a great deal as they probably keep a higher margin and also gain exclusive content.  I don’t think exclusive deals like this for such an extended time period is good for consumers.  I “get it” for a month or two…but for years?

Here’s the article.

Which company takes longer to bring a new product to market?

Based on this article, it seems to be PlasticLogic and their ereader.  Hope it’s worth the wait.

Read this.

Then this.

Welcome to the ebooks twilight zone…where time and experience no longer matters and we operate in a perpetual loop of disasters.

Here’s the link

I guess they are hoping to encourage piracy.  It’s amazing to me that 10 years after the music industry found out what a disaster it can be to assume you “control” your customers, that this occurs.

Seriously.  How does this make any sense whatsoever?

“As the Kindle, nook and other e-readers become more popular, publishers fear that their revenue will shrink drastically. ”

Always good to run a business out of fear apparently.  Someone must’ve told me wrong.  I thought you ran a business in order to capitalize on opportunities.  Changing consumer demand is an opportunity.

Just emailed our customers about a discount code that is valid until 12/15/2009.

The code is worth 15% off any ebook order and any format we carry.

The code is:  HMAGAIN

We are celebrating our new office!

I noticed one of our customers purchased “A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” and immediately smiled.

He/She is in for a real treat.

The ebook is about a young kid with Arnsberger’s Syndrome that fancies himself as a young Sherlock Holmes.

However, one of the effects of syndrome is that he cannot recognize human emotion.  It’s a little like the movie Rain Man in that respect…but much better.

This book will definitely get you to laugh a time or two…or in my case for many hours.

The author, Mark Haddon, is a bit of genius in my opinion.  I have yet to read his other title, A Spot of Bother, but it appears to have been a national bestseller.

Anyways, here’s a code for 40% off this particular title.

The code is:  CURIOU

Enjoy!

I just finished three outstanding Juvenile Fiction ebooks by Christopher Paolini.

You have probably heard of Eragon since it was made into a movie.

But I also read Eldest and Brisingr.

I was looking for an escape…it’s been a rough year…and these titles were just the ticket.

While the titles are labeled as juvenile fiction ebooks, I would highly recommend them to any adult who needs an escape.  The characters are well developed, the story keeps you guessing and it’s frankly difficult to put down each of the books.

I am looking forward to the fourth book in the series. (which has yet to be released)

Here’s are title names and codes for 40% off each of the titles:

Eragon:  ERAGON

Eldest:  ELDEST

Brisingr:  BRISIN

Enjoy!

For those of you who still like the feeling of a physical book.  First off, why are you on a ebook blog?  :-)

But secondly, BookSwim.com is “Netflix-for-books”.  I like the idea but obviously have no need to use them myself.

But years ago I would have used this service for sure.  Although it seems like a good way to contract a virus….but I’m sure they clean every page.

3 books at a time “checked out” for $23.95.  Hmm…seems like if the publishers would agree to it that could be an interesting model for ebooks as well.

But that’s an awfully big “IF”.

Haven’t held it.  Haven’t seen it in person.  I have no idea if it even works.

But I love this kind of stuff…innovation.

I’ve been looking at e-ink screens for about five years now and am dumbfounded how slow the innovation curve is.  I think that is why Steve Jobs holds them in such disdain.

Now the LG Solar-powered ereader emerges.  Finally something new-ish.

That’s something different.  Maybe it’s silly/not practical…but I love it.  Don’t let those polka dots distract you.  (or whatever they are…sheesh…)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6306656/LG-Display-unveils-solar-powered-ebook.html

We are working on making it easier for folks to understand, pre-purchase, that most of the PDF files on our site have security around them.  Therefore you must download and install the free Adobe Digital Editions software.

It’s a simple to use lightweight piece of software that works on both PC and Mac.  Digital Editions also works very well with a bunch of ereaders out there.

Adobe is out there working as a counter balance to the closed system that Amazon is trying to force on everyone.  I spoke with them recently and they have some solid plans for development in the works.  So it’s definitely a platform that’s going to be around.

Here’s how to install Digital Editions.