Apr 15

eBook 101 – For New Recruits

Okay, I don’t want those in the know to be offended, but there is a HUGE and CURIOUS group of people out there searching the Internet with a lot of questions. (The mainstream?) And they’re coming to eBook Rumors for answers. (The smart ones anyway…yah?)

It is still so very early in the technology. Word travels far and fast these days, but everyone is so busy it takes time to absorb the news. Those of us who have been in for a while rooting around for information might easily forget that the vast majority of web surfers are just starting to ask the question, “eBook, what’s an eBook?” And others still: “What in the hell would I do with one of those?”

The people at Pocket-lint.com have been kind enough to run over the basics here. For the early adopters, forgive the recap, for new members to the eBook Revolution, welcome.

Apr 14

Another Good Reason to Join the Revolution…

I really enjoyed this article at xkcd The blag of the webcomic. An intrepid eBook Reader and Kindle owner hangs a low-tech solution on a hi-tech revolution. You have to love the camera work. I hope it’s not too technical, yah!


Apr 13

Manybooks.net – Selection Grows – So Does the Readership!

Free eBooks!

Free eBooks!

Bought an eBook Reader and you want to start building your personal eLibrary right away? Take a look through Manybooks.net’s offering of 23,058 Free eBOOKS in multiple formats gathered from sources like Gutenberg, Indie and traditionally published authors.

Matthew McClintock creator of Manybooks.net has put together an interesting service for readers and writers that you’ve just got to see.

McClintock offers tools and conversion software downloads for readers and writers. You can download the eBooks in a format to suit your reading device, and conversion tools are available to writers for making their work available for digital consumption.

He also lists stats on the most popular eBook formats based on downloads. Click here to view.

I noticed that PDF is commanding top spot in format of choice. I wonder if that means people are reading them as PDF’s or whether they’re easier to convert to format of choice.

Fantastic site, yah!


Apr 12

Amazon owns Mobipocket.

Now keep that in mind as you read this story at The Daily News Online here. Amazon owns Mobipocket. In this story the tech writer fails to mention that Amazon owns Mobipocket, another huge online eBook sales company.

But the reporter asks whether Kindle Reader software for iPhone will be good for Amazon?

Missing from the article is the fact that Mobipocket delayed the release of the Mobipocket Reader for iPhone, just as its parent company Amazon delayed the release of the Kindle Reader for iPhone, in an attempt to manipulate the market and create an open field to deliver their Kindle 2.

That manipulation shut the millions of iPhone readers out of AMAZON and MOBIPOCKET because they could not open DRM-locked files with the APPS they had to develop on their own to turn their iPhones into eBook Readers. They couldn’t open and read the eBooks that AMAZON and MOBIPOCKET had for sale. One of those APPS mentioned in the article, the STANZA Reader is now a competitor in its own right, and is capable of opening practically all eBook formats and is available for Desktop too.

This economic and technical isolation encouraged iPhone eBook fans to look to other sources for reading material, some of which had to be cracked eBooks, unlocked, pirated, re-sold or borrowed out there on the web.

That in turn has begun the same sort of lock-picking and file-sharing that plagues the music and movie  industries.

So, to respond to that tech reporter’s suggestion that a Kindle Reader for iPhone could be good for Amazon, I will say, uh obviously, but it could have been much better for everyone if Amazon had not manipulated the marketplace and turned consumers into competitors. Yah?

Apr 11

Kindle 2 Rumor Coming True?

The idea was being bandied about over a month ago, but it looks like there’s truth to the rumor. Kindle 2 is being re-designed to have a bigger screen to handle newspapers more efficiently (and the capability to function outside the US, let’s hope…). Engadget.com reports it here.

Hard to believe a new one’s going to be available so quickly, with reports suggesting its release before the holiday buying season,  (makes more sense than the February launch of Kindle 2). It tells you how stiff the competition is, and how much Amazon wants to correct any of its initial blunders. I don’t think the planners there understood how quickly eBooks and eBook Readers would be adopted.

It’s clear that they underestimated their competition. Yah? Let’s hope they install a more competitive price too.


Apr 10

Happy Holidays

We’re pretty sure the eBook Battles will continue through the Easter weekend, but eBook Rumors wishes you a peaceful holiday just the same.

Got to take one day off, yah?

p.s. Oh what the hell: there’s a rumor at Slashgear that Foxconn (The ODM for Kindle 2) is charging into the eBook Revolution with an eBook reader of its own. Read about it here.

Apr 09

You gotta love Barnes and Noble

In the “It’s Never too Late to Copy Someone’s Success Department” Barnes and Noble is rumored to have its own eBook Reader in development. Read the whole story at Engadget here.

I guess they’ve got to do something to make up for the time they lost closing and dismantling their eBook Store. Read about that smooth move here. Up until late last year they had abandoned eBooks and now they’re in catch up mode. Read about their first smart move here. After purchasing Fictionwise to handle the sale of eBooks, they’re now making their own Kindle. We’ll see if they repeat Amazon’s mistakes as well, yah?


Apr 08

More On the Kindle Reader Protest

I thought I’d revisit this debate. Wired.com goes into the Amazon $9.99 Boycott story in greater depth here. I mention it again because I’m sure we’re going to keep hearing about this until something drastic happens. What Amazon has to remember is the sophistication of search engines gives consumers freedom to choose where they go shopping online. Consumers can search the globe for the best prices.

If they run into an online retailer like Amazon.com guilty, as mentioned in the linked article, of fixing and changing prices from day to day, (Manipulating market forces some say…) then the consumer is entirely free to click on down the Information Highway to the next online retailer–hopefully there to find more competitive prices. (Perhaps unlocked eBooks too… [Say NO to DRM!])

Amazon.com has already had to cut the Kindle loose of their devious plan to control readers and lock in a consumer base with proprietary formats; if their greed continues to alienate those Kindle owners will the publishers and authors be far behind? Yah?

Publisher websites are already selling their own eBook titles. So are authors. Think about that for a minute and you might recognize the catalyzing force behind the ‘drastic’  change I mention above. Amazon.com’s ambition for world domination only matters so long as the online eBook retailer is relevant to the discussion.

Apr 07

The Consumer Speaks!

I just wish they’d picked a smaller number than $9.99 to circle their wagons around. Read the Amazon eBook Boycott story at Mediabistro.com here.

$9.99 is still way, way too high a price to pay for something that requires a considerable investment to read. There is no justification for it other than greed. But fine, $9.99 it is. At least it’s a line in the sand, right? eBooks and eBook Reading Devices all have to plunge in price if they’re ever going to be adopted by the ‘actual’ mainstream.

You know, the mainstream, some hundreds of millions of us that don’t  own an eBook Reader yet, but who are interested if the price was ever anything but absurd. That mainstream.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to start the debate. But let’s start the bidding for eBooks at say, $3.00 each. That represents a 100% markup on a product that is stored, copied and shipped for virtually nothing (if we accept the article’s supposition that it costs $1.50 to make an eBook) .

Remember people: Amazon is a mammoth corporation fixated on profit and monopolizing the marketplace. Amazon wants your money. It is mandated to take as much money as it can from you so that it can report yet another profit in its next quarter regardless of economic health or decline in product services resulting from its adoption of an unsustainable business model.

These big companies are arrogant to declare ownership and control over a revolution that will free writer, reader and publisher alike, yah? The mainstream has the power now to decide what is mainstream.

Apr 06

Writer’s Fears Kindled by eBook Revolution

Writer Chris Bohjalian (pronounce at your own risk…) expresses his fears in this article carried by the Salisbury Post here. I get a kick out of all this. You know, I would never have heard of this guy if not for the very digital changes he’s afraid of.

It amazes me that so many writers can take such a non-traditional and potentially dangerous life-path and remain worry warts. It’s the nature of the beast, yah?

(p.s. I did the online reading test he suggests, and he’s right. I quit reading before the end of the article. When I realized this and went back to finish I discovered that I would have missed this line: “That is one of the risks we have going to digital — losing our totemic, fetishistic, soulful connection to pulp and ink and glue.” I understand it, but fetishistic? Gesundheit!)