Tag archive: ebooks

When one sees the terms “copyright infringement” and “China,” the most common assumption is that any piracy is being committed by Chinese firms in violation of others' copyrights. Not so, in this case: as reported by the Chinese financial newspaper Caixin, a group of prominent Chinese authors has filed a formal suit against Apple, claiming the company's iBooks electronic book store is distributing their… Read More

Barnes & Noble is facing a dilemma. On the one hand, the company is seeing success with its Nook e-reader and digital book ecosystem. Today, it trumpeted that sales throughout the Nook business — including its tablet and e-readers, as well as content — were up 70 percent this holiday season, compared to last year. However, at the same time, Barnes & Noble has been forced to scale back its financial guidance for its overall business:… Read More

Following news that Nintendo will introduce an application store with its forthcoming Wii U console, a rumor has appeared that an eBook download service could be introduced too. This builds on the speculation that Nintendo wants its next console to be more than just a games machine. Quoting an unnamed software developer who has been working with Nintendo, Forgetthebox.net was told of a complete eBook download service, featuring not only books,… Read More

Hot on the heels of the European Commission launching a formal inquiry into whether five publishers colluded to raise prices on ebooks—possibly with the assistance of Apple—the U.S. Justice Department has confirmed that it is also looking into the ebook industry, as are states attorneys general. Speaking at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of antitrust enforcement agencies, the Justice Department's acting antitrust chief… Read More

Remember back in early 2010 when Apple launched iBookstore? The idea of selling electronic books wasn't new — the Kindle, Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble Nook, and other e-readers were already on the market, along with their associated book stores and third-party efforts like Google Books. But one thing that made consumers' jaws drop when Apple unveiled iBookstore was the price tags: New releases were initially priced at $12.99 to… Read More

Barnes & Noble has announced its financial results for the second fiscal quarter of 2012 — which, by the vagaries of corporate finance, actually ended in late October 2011. Going into the holiday season, the company reported an overall decline in sales of 0.6 percent, while retail sales were down a full 1 percent year over year to $918 million for the quarter. However, there's one very bright spot in Barnes & Noble's numbers:… Read More

Penguin eBooks are once again available for library lending to owners of Amazon Kindle devices, at least through libraries using OverDrive's ebook lending service. Penguin withdrew all its titles from library lending to Kindle owners through OverDrive earlier this week citing “security concerns,” and said it would stop making new titles available to library lending on any platform. Penguin's reversal returns makes… Read More

Borrowing e-books from libraries is a nifty idea. Not only are the titles digital (and thus searchable, sync-able, available on a wide range of devices and capable of scaling to match user's displays and devices), but readers and libraries don't have to deal with the overhead of managing, storing, cataloging, repairing, and replacing physical books. Digital editions are perpetually brand new. Even better, there are no late fees with… Read More

You can download apps that let you read eBooks pretty easily on your iPad and iPhone or Touch but that doesn't help for all documents or eBooks. Still, before you get started creating eBooks you need to have an app that will read eBooks. Most are free and include ones like iBooks by Apple. Most eReaders can read .txt and .pdf files, the standard is the .epub format. Kindle, which does have an app as well, uses the .mobi format.… Read More

Amazon has long been heralded as the enemy of the brick-and-mortar bookstore, offering consumers a huge selection of titles via mail order at prices even the largest booksellers have trouble matching. Over time, Amazon expanded its online marketplace horizontally, adding clothing, groceries, computers, games, tech, tools, and myriad other products to its online shelves. But, with the Kindle, the company came back to its roots as a bookseller and… Read More

Announced today, Amazon is testing a new feature of the Kindle that allows readers to directly ask questions to the author of a book. Borrowing a page from Twitter, the program is called @author and allows readers to post questions from the Kindle. Readers can also visit the Amazon Author page to post questions on the Web. Questions are published on the Amazon Author page and readers interested in the author can read all questions. Using the… Read More

Way back in the year 2000—before the iPhone, before Facebook, before MySpace, and before 9/11—Microsoft launched Microsoft Reader, a free desktop application designed to serve as a digital reading library for desktop PCs, which the company then extended to Windows Mobile and UMPCs (remember those?). However, Microsoft Reader has largely been neglected by the software giant for the last four years, and now the company has officially… Read More

Amazon has taken another step in expanding its Kindle ecosystem, today announcing the Kindle Cloud Reader, an HTML5 Web application that enables users to access their Kindle content via the Web—although, initially, that means just Google Chrome and Safari for Macs, PCs, and iPads. The Amazon Cloud Reader features both online and offline modes, synchronizes users notes, bookmarks, and libraries no matter where users have been using Kindle… Read More

In an effort to boost sales of its Nook range of e-readers, book giant Barnes & Noble is offering free books worth $100 to those who purchase the device before September 12. Aimed at students but open to everyone, the offer includes 12 free classics, such as Crime and Punishment and A Tale of Two Cities (hang on, can’t you already get these titles for free?). Other titles wrapped up in the deal include Sparks Notes study guides for the likes… Read More

Back in February Apple angered folks offering digital content to iOS devices via their apps by announcing a new policy that requires in-app purchases go through Apple's own services, rather than connecting to the publishers' own digital content systems. Now, the policy is reaping more victims: booksellers Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo—along with The Wall Street Journal—have removed in-app purchasing from their… Read More