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Humble Bundle goes literary, offers octuplet of books at a humble price
The Humble Bundle tends to be associated with not just low prices, but also indie video games (and occasionally music). Today's bundle, however, centers on the literary-minded among us, offering a set of eight e-Books for just under $10. Of course, a main staple of the bundle is its pay what you want price model, which applies here as well -- should you only want six of the books, you can pay any price (one penny for six books! hot dog!). If you want access to John Scalzi's Old Man's War and Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, you've gotta shell out over the average payment price (currently sitting at $9.84). If you want that sub-$10 price, we'd suggest heading over sooner than later. Another good reason? You've only got two weeks before this humble e-Book bundle disappears forever.
Kindle Paperwhite gets its own jailbreak, E Ink spews everywhere
If you're an avid tinkerer who managed to secure a Kindle Paperwhite before they sold out, then we have some news that may well brighten up your day. A jailbreak based off of the hack for the Kindle Touch has been developed for Amazon's new e-reader and is now available for fearless Paperwhite owners. If you're up to the task, your bravery will award you some elite features which include: using your device as a weather station display and serial terminal access with Raspberry Pi systems. If all of this sounds like a fun weekend project waiting to happen, head on over to source link for step by step instructions.
The Silent History e-book requires iPhone, iPad users to travel
The Silent History is not your typical science fiction e-book. It's a serial narrative from Eli Horowitz and Russell Quinn that uses geocaching to add to the story line. The ability to discover additional information about the plot from clues in your local environment sets The Silent History apart from other e-books and makes it incredibly interesting. The e-book tells the story of children who are born silent, but possess powerful skills. It's narrated via daily updates called testimonials. Each update gives you a glimpse into the characters as the story unfolds over the course of a year. Besides testimonials, the e-book also includes field reports, which can only be read in specific geographic locations. These field reports can be found in alleys, buildings and include other small items in our surroundings. One reviewer describes finding a field report when she passed by a name carved into a cement sidewalk. The first wave of field reports were created by the makers of the book, and they have invited fans to contribute their own narration for the the next round of field reports. The Silent History is available for free from the iOS App Store, but you will need to purchase the volumes in order to read the book. You can buy all the volumes (1-6) for US$8.99 or try out the e-book by purchasing just volume 1 for $1.99. If you decide you like it, you can then buy volumes 2-6 for $7.99.
iBook Lessons: Traditional publishers react to new trends
iBook Lessons is a continuing series about ebook writing and publishing. A year ago, traditional publishers seemed hopelessly left behind as a new world of instant-pub media emerged. Self-publishing, specifically via services and tools like those provided by Apple's iBookstore/iBooks Author and Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, provided a way for independent authors to challenge the marketplace. Independent authors could write, publish and distribute short works that followed closely on trends as they happened. As new technology was announced, writers could immediately address that market. Apple might introduce a new OS bump or deliver a new tablet. Indie authors could develop and deliver materials on a new kind of timeline, often just weeks after an announcement. Last year, Apple launched the iPhone 4S in early October, a device offering the new Siri virtual assistant. By the end of October, Steve Sande and I had written and self-published "Talking to Siri", a guide to the new technology. If we had worked with traditional publishing at that point, it would likely have taken at least four to six months to get that same book out. In the end, we were able to leverage the success of our self-published efforts to create a deal with Que, one of Pearson's (Addison Wesley) technical imprints to bring "Talking to Siri" to the printed page. The book was printed in the Winter of 2012, months after Siri launched and has sold consistently well in traditional bookstores like Barnes & Noble, as well as on the virtual shelves of Amazon and the iBookstore. We both feel our early launch was a key player in this success. Fast forward a year, and the world has begun to turn upside down. Traditional publishers are now tentatively exploring the frontier of rapid publishing. It's not an easy change. A lot of work goes into delivering a professionally produced book. Production, digital conversion, marketing, business and web site support teams all have to come together to make this happen. Pearson just launched an Early Edition program to offer readers advanced access to new, timely topics. Early Editions provide early peeks at books during the production process. It allows readers to buy-in much sooner, to get access to relevant materials -- even in a somewhat unfinished state. It trades off this rapid delivery to its audience against the time-intensive process that ensures high quality published editions. The fact is this: The tech world moves quickly. Apple typically updates its hardware and software on a yearly basis. A book that takes six months to produce may offer an unreasonably shortened shelf life. Consider developer-specific topics, for example. Taking Apple's no-pub Nondisclosure Agreement periods (NDAs) into account, where material cannot be publicly discussed, each year may offer at best nine months of sales availability. Cutting off a third to a half of this time due to publishing delays puts huge pressures on authors and publishers. The quicker publishers can move materials into the public, the longer each book's shelf life can be, and the more possible sales it can offer. I was fortunate to be part of Pearson's first Early Edition push. My Core iOS 6 Developer's Cookbook went live the day after the iOS 6 NDA dropped. In exchange for basically working non-stop since WWDC, Pearson was able to accelerate editing and technical review. Readers can now purchase a volume that although not perfectly polished, offers time-sensitive content that's useful for immediate iOS 6 development needs. For me, from an author's point of view, it's a huge step forward. Moving to a world of quick pub turn-around didn't come easily. Development editors Chris Zahn and Dayna Isley spearheaded the Pearson initiative, with strong encouragement from management. An in-house group titled "Digital Only / Digital First" helped imagine their digital strategy. The digital task force included a cross section of editorial, production, conversion and marketing folks. The team brainstormed how to publish e-formats before print versions came out. They decided on a group of books to focus on (the iOS 6 series) and chose to move content into ePub, Mobi, and PDF formats right after copy edit. This is right before manuscripts would traditionally go into the composition process and then eventually to the printer. The harder issues weren't authoring and editing content; it was paperwork. "As a group, we had to figure out how to get out of our own way," Zahn explained. "We had to decide how to enter products into our business systems, how to present them for sale on our site and how to market them. We got marketing, the InformIT folks and production on board. Somehow it all came together, and we ended up with a successful rollout of the Early Edition program this October." Today, I had a chance to sit down with Paul Boger, Vice-President and Publisher at Pearson Technology Group. He's the man who gave the green light to the Early Editions program. He took some time to talk about the evolution of the book, about the program itself, and where traditional publishers need to move when looking to the future. TUAW: Tell me about the Early Edition program. PB: We, here at Pearson, have a number of people here who are intensely interested in figuring out how to break the mold of the physical book. We're exploring how to move beyond the constraints of the physical production process to provide critical information to people as fast as we possibly can. The Early Edition program is part of that vision. We have a number of people in our group -- Dana Isley, Chris Zahn, Trina MacDonald, Stephanie Nakib -- who believed that we could, with tweaks to our process, publish weeks ahead of the physical book if were able to bend the process a little bit. So that group of people got together to do this with our line of iOS 6 books (including the Core iOS 6 Developer's Cookbook, Learning Objective-C 2.0, and Programming in Objective-C) for the new Early Editions. In the process, we're learning a lot. It's helping make our readers and authors really happy by getting ideas and expertise out even faster. TUAW: What were some of the challenges you've encountered? PB: A lot of the challenges are cultural rather than physical. We're book publishers by professional training. We're used to thinking that content needs to look a certain way, be presented a certain way, be finished to a certain level. We're trying really hard to put those assumptions away. We're learning to disregard those knee-jerk opinions about when something is "finished" and "usable" and when it's not. One of the concepts we haven't cracked yet is how and when can we create "books" (I use air quotes there) that are never really finished. How do you create new books that are alive all the time? We're not there yet but we're working on that problem really hard. TUAW: What does it mean to be a "book" -- I'll use the air quotes, too -- in the world of electronic publishing? PB: I think the word "book" is changing to mean something printed on paper, contained between two covers, and sold as a unit. Ebooks mean something different. Ebooks are developing their own set of commercial expectations -- whether it's the author or reader who has set those expectations. Plus, we think there's something else we haven't named yet in the mix. We use the catchphrase "content" but it's something quite different. For example, what does it mean to "buy" a book when it's something that can be updated? Tech publishers have played around with the subscription model, with Wiki-based books, and so forth. We at Pearson publish content with Safari Books Online. It's a purely digital delivery platform with no physical component. When someone buys a printed book, I think increasingly they're buying the physical manifestation of content at a certain point in time. When they buy an ebook, I think that expectations at least for tech consumers is that that content will continue changing. More and more our customers expect when they buy that ebook they'll receive updates. When technology changes or there are new techniques, consumers expect the content to change in real time. Publishers have to catch up with that expectation and they really haven't yet. TUAW: What are consumers looking for in electronic books? And how can these books remain current and fresh? At some level, what you're buying is the author's expertise and the question remains: How does the publication vehicle help an author deliver that expertise in a way that is efficient for everyone? Obviously, authors can't spend 24/7 updating just one product -- there are a whole family of products to attend to, plus blog plus other things [that an author might be involved in]. Publishers have to make it easy for authors to interact with customers and update content. And we have other challenges. In my group, for instance in Sams Publishing, we publish a lot of open source texts that change all the time. When have we compiled enough changes to justify releasing a new edition of an 800 or 1000 page "book"? That's the physical challenge, namely when have there been enough changes to have customer buy a new book versus how do we deliver new info for people who've bought existing books? Ebook updates may be one way to do that -- but we all feel there's a better way, we just haven't discovered it yet. TUAW: How does publishing have to change? PB: Traditional publishers are being forced to examine the value and services that they create for authors and for end-users. Maybe I should use the word readers here, instead, but we have for a long time considered them end-users. We're lucky to work at a place like Pearson where there's pressure on us to innovate and think outside the box. It's an exciting and terrifying time to be a publisher because you're not just competing with other publishers but also with app developers, websites that help answer specific questions, and even with people who send alerts to someone's phone. We're now working with schools who deliver their courses online and adapting to the whole phenomenon of "MOOCs," massively open online courses. I've never experienced this much change in my entire career, when it comes to teaching people how to do things. We're trying to explore every opportunity and still pay the light bill. TUAW: What would an ideal book look like? PB: My ideal would involve a digital content presentation that allows interactivity where appropriate, where it adds value rather than just representing a distraction with bells and whistles. The ideal book could be regularly updated based on customer feedback collected either within the book itself or provided by readers/customers via a direct relationship with the author and the publisher. The ideal book could be printed and provided to physical bookstores, when it was efficient or necessary to do that. But I think we'd start with a digital presentation of the information and then add value to that experience. TUAW: What kinds of test programs are you working with now? PB: One of our groups is experimenting with iBooks and ePub. They're trying to figure out how to create better ebook experiences. Then there's the early edition program and some work we're developing on interactive learning. In another part of our business, we're developing simulation software for certification students. We're moving our certification content to a digital learning platform called "My Labs." Pearson developed this for the education market to provide assessment and remediation. It includes video and simulation content, and is intended for use in labs setting. We sell that to the education market primarily. And, we have a longstanding video training program that we're currently expanding. We sell these on our website and through Safari Books Online. Plus we've got all kinds of other stuff going on as well. All of these depend on our authors. Open minded authors are still the primary component of our success. Nothing good happens if we're not willing to try sailing on new seas every once in a while. Our Early Editions program wouldn't be available if authors like you weren't willing to experiment with us. It's a really exciting time. You can follow Paul on Twitter at @pboger.
B&N makes the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight's $20 price drop official
The Nook's $20 price drop is more than the whim of a few major retailers -- it's Barnes & Noble's new MSRP. Following Walmart and Target's recent discounts, the company's own website is now listing the glowing e-reader at its new $119 price. The reduction is almost assuredly in preparation for Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite, as B&N's announcement makes a point of bragging about the Simple Touch with Glowlight's included AC adapter and aversion to built-in ads. See the punchy press release for yourself after the break.
Google Play Books app arrives in Japan, adds translation, place info, highlighting and more
Not content at stopping with its recent European tour, Google Play Books has made the trip to Japan and brought back a handful of new features. In addition to support for reading Japanese books in a vertical, right-to left layout, Mountain view now lets users tap on names of geographical spots within text and see them pinned to a Google Map alongside the option to find more information using Larry Page's favorite search engine or Wikipedia. A freshly added translation feature takes user-highlighted words and phrases and spits them out in the reader's language of choice. Particularly studious literature lovers can now mark up their digital books with notes and highlights that sync to the web and across their personal fleet of devices. A new sepia tone theme also joined the existing day and night views on their journey abroad. Hit the source links below for more details and the download.
iPhone User Guide for iOS 6 now available as an eBook
Always nice to see something free from Apple, and the timing couldn't be better. The iBooks version of the iPhone User Guide for iOS 6 is available on the iBookstore. Apple isn't much on paper manuals these days; most Apple products come with a thin little guide, so many users get their tips from websites like TUAW and others. This Apple e-book is quite complete, with chapters explaining all the new features in iOS 6. I found the chapter on Siri and changes in the camera app most helpful. The book is illustrated, and every bit as good as something you'd buy online or at a book store. This is a good idea, but it's certainly not being trumpeted by Apple; you just kind of have to know it's there. That's what we're here for, so get over to the iTunes and download it. Apple is also offering free user guides for the iPhone, the iPad, and iOS 5.1 if you didn't upgrade. There's a few screen grabs in the gallery. The book can only be viewed on an iOS device using the iBooks app. %Gallery-166352%
Nikkei: Amazon to launch Kindle in Japan 'early October'
If it feels like we've heard about Amazon's intention to punch through the Japanese wall with Kindle before, it's because we have. However, if a new report on Reuters via The Nikkei is to be believed, it could finally be getting closer. It's said that the internet retailer had planned to launch its e-reader line in September, but supply chain problems put paid to that. Now we're told it'll land in "early October" with Amazon hurriedly securing Japanese content in time for the busy end of year sales period. The Kindle's still not out of the woods just yet though, as it's also been suggested that publishers are being asked to change data formats for their content, which is ripe for causing another bottleneck, should they not comply in time. Sadly, given the history of this tale, we're not expecting Japanese farm owners to be making any irrational bets just yet.
PSA: Amazon's Kindle Fire HD 7, new Fire and Reader now stocked
If you had your heart set on a Kindle Fire, Fire HD 7 or Reader, you can now plunk down your plastic and receive one as fast as your shipper can wheel it over. The 1,280 x 800 Fire HD 7-inch model, which we recently put through the wringer, is available in a 16GB version for $199, and Amazon says the 32GB version will arrive October 25th. As we noted, it carries a new dual-band WiFi system for greater surfing speed, dual speakers, a front HD camera and a TI-made dual-core ARM Cortex A-9 processor. The updated Kindle Fire can be had as well for $159, with double the RAM of the last version, a new processor and a bigger battery. Finally, the new Kindle Reader is also up for grabs at an ad-supported cost of $69, while the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD should be along in November at $299 ($499 for a 4G version). So, if you're already looking ahead to a certain holiday, check the sources to see how to get one.
Library increases attendance with iPhone, iPad apps and classes
In this day and age of digital books, library attendance is falling as people pick up their Kindles instead of paperbacks. One library in Illinois decided to win back patrons by embracing this technology instead of fighting it, says a report in Winnetka Talk. To become more technology-friendly, the Winnetka-Northfield Public Library placed iPads at public desks for customers to use. It has even released an iOS app that'll let residents search the library's catalog of books, manage their library account and find upcoming events. Librarians also noticed they were fielding a lot of questions about e-readers and tablets, so they started offering weekly sessions on how to use these devices with the library's e-book offerings. Library visitors can just drop-in on a class or set up an appointment for a private class.
Judge approves settlement for Hachette, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins in e-book lawsuit
It's a big day in the world of e-books, and not just for the crew at Amazon. Today, Judge Denise Cote approved settlement terms for three of the publishers accused by the Justice Department of price fixing. Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins each agreed to settle with the government, rather than face trial -- as Apple, Macmillian and Penguin Group will do in June of 2013. As part of the settlement agreement, each of the publishers will be required to terminate their contracts with Apple within one week. Similarly, they will be required to end contracts with other e-book retailers where clauses exist that would hinder the seller's ability to set pricing. Further, the settling companies won't be able to form contracts for the next two years with e-book retailers that would hinder the seller's discretion to set pricing. During the settlement approval period, individuals and companies alike were given 60 days to weigh in on the matter, which included objections from the American Booksellers Association, the Authors Guild and Barnes & Noble. Ultimately, Judge Cote determined that arguments against the settlement were "insufficient" to block the approval.
$69 million ebook settlement reached with three publishers, Apple remains in suit
Three of the publishers involved in the antitrust suit levied by the U.S. Department of Justice against Apple and others have officially reached a settlement, with $69 million going to consumers as a result, Baltimore's ABC 2 reported on Thursday. Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster will issue the payouts and agreed to terminate agency pricing contracts with publishers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. This pricing model, which mirrors Apple's 70-30 revenue split with software developers on the App Store, includes a "most favored nation" clause that blocked Amazon from discounting bestselling ebooks below cost as it moved to secure its overwhelming share of the ebook market. ABC 2 said Apple, along with Amazon, Google, Sony, Barnes & Noble and Kobo, agreed to contact eligible customers via email and that the amount issued will either be a check or credit toward future purchases. The amount of restitution is varied by state and affects books sold under the agency model by all five publishers (the above publishers plus Penguin and Macmillan, called the "Agency Five") between April 1, 2010, and May 21, 2012. A couple of weeks ago, Apple blasted the proposed settlement, which involves renegotiating contracts with the publishers, saying it was unfair and unlawful. The trial against those who remain in the antitrust suit -- Penguin, Macmillan and Apple -- is scheduled to begin in June 2013. The settlement will go into effect 30 days after being approved by a federal judge. [Via The Verge]
Barnes & Noble continues British invasion, forges pacts with Argos, Blackwell's and Foyles
Barnes & Noble has continued its quest to stock the shelves of United Kingdom bookstores with Nooks, by adding Argos, Blackwell's and Foyles to the list of where you can get one. Those retailers will join John Lewis in carrying the Nook Simple Touch and its Glow Light-toting cousin, giving UK'ers nearly a thousand bricks and mortar sites to get one -- including bookstores at 55 colleges and universities. Those locations will join Barnes & Nobles recently launched online website in selling the e-readers -- but if you like to Touch before buying, the PR is after the break.
Amazon Appstore arrives in Europe, won't be late for school
Amazon's Appstore has been doing brisk business stateside, and is now ready to sell its wares to Europeans in Germany, France, Italy, the UK and Spain. If you sign up, you'll be able to create reviews and make one-click payments, and will have access to a huge library of apps from top-tier brands, as well as localized content. The company said purchases can be used "across a customer's Android devices," which will let you buy an app once, and use it on any of your tablets or smartphones that support the OS. If you'd like to check it out, or get one of Amazon's Free Apps of the Day, check the PR for all the details.
Amazon Publishing inks deal with Ingram, opens e-book distribution to rivals
Amazon Publishing is continuing to broaden its distribution channels, as the New York-based imprint has formed a partnership with Ingram Content Group that will make the company's e-books available to competitors such as Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kobo. As you may be aware, there's some uneasy tension between the rivals, as Barnes & Noble has previously removed Amazon's print editions from its retail shelves in response to the company's former e-book exclusivity in the Kindle Store. It remains unknown whether any of the competitors will indeed choose to sell Amazon's content in electronic form. It's also worth pointing out that because deal applies only to Amazon Publishing's New York-based imprint, the company's west coast division is excluded from the distribution deal. Regardless of how things shake out, it's encouraging to see Amazon extend the olive branch -- now let's hope the competition reciprocates.
Engadget's back to school guide 2012: e-readers
Welcome to Engadget's back to school guide! The end of summer vacation isn't nearly as much fun as the weeks that come before, but a chance to update your tech tools likely helps to ease the pain. Today, we're flippin' through the pages on our e-readers -- and you can head to the back to school hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the month. Be sure to keep checking back -- at the end of the month we'll be giving away a ton of the gear featured in our guides -- and hit up the hub page right here! Most of us are still walking around hunchbacked from years of carrying heavy textbooks in our overstuffed backpacks. Thankfully, an e-reader can significantly lighten the loads for students everywhere. Sure, we've still got a ways to go before electronic devices can replace textbooks altogether, but in the long run, they could significantly impact the postures of backpack wearers all over. Jump past the break for our recommendations, and another opportunity to enter our back to school giveaway. Simply leave a comment at the bottom to be entered to win, and head over to our giveaway page for more details.
Hold the presses! Amazon UK selling more e-books than printed ones
It's becoming a habit of Amazon's to report on the rise of the e-book at the expense of physical texts, and their latest announcement is no different. Sales figures show that in the UK, 114 Kindle purchases have been made for every 100 printed copies so far in 2012. A similar statistic was achieved in the US last year, but whether these are true indications of e-book supremacy is up for discussion. Free downloads were excluded from the tally, but those released via Kindle Direct Publishing without a paper twin were counted. The Guardian also notes that these are unaudited figures, so there may be a digit awry here or there. And with a few physical stores still around, there's no need to panic-buy that Kindle just yet.
Amazon Q2 2012 earnings: net income down 96 percent to $7 million, net sales up 29 percent to $12.83 billion
When internet mega retailer Amazon kicked off its fiscal year this past spring with $13.8 billion in net sales, the prognosis for the quarter ahead was dour, to say the least. At the time, the company projected its Q2 2012 performance would see an operating loss of $40 million to $260 million versus Q2 2011, as well as a slight down tick in revenue at $11.9 billion to $13.3 billion quarter to quarter. Well, the numbers are in and it looks like the forecast was right on the money. The Seattle-based outfit posted $7 million in net income for the quarter, a year over year loss amounting to a whopping 96 percent decrease. As for net sales, that picture's a bit rosier given the 29 percent increase over Q2 2011 that saw the Bezos-backed co. pull in $12.83 billion -- a figure that would have risen to 32 percent were it not for a $272 million hit due to "changes in foreign exchange rates[.]" Operating cash flow for Q2 2012 was down by nearly half at $107MM compared to the same segment last year. Unsurprisingly, the company's budget Kindle Fire tab -- which has enjoyed relatively weak competition up to now -- is still the number one item across Amazon's site, with titles in its Lending Library growing to over 170,000. Bezos also made note of Prime's growth, pegging that subscription offering's catalog of items at 15 million and highlighting the addition of 18,000 movies and TV shows to its streaming service. As for the future, the company expects Q3 net sales to grow by at least 19 percent year-over-year, landing somewhere between $12.9 billion and $14.3 billion, with a projected operating loss of $50 million to $350 million. Hit up the PR after the break for the full load of financial highs and lows.
Amazon puts 50MB limit on 3G Kindle's 'free' experimental browser
Sad news for global freeloaders travellers looking to keep up with Gmail and Twitter on their Amazon e-reader. The online book seller has started closing in on excessive free web browsing, policing a 50MB data limit on its keyboard Kindle iterations. According to users on MobileRead, you'll still be able to browse Amazon's Kindle store and Wikipedia, but anything beyond that gets locked down. After some further investigation, it looks like Amazon added a provision outlining the data limits on its site, dated around July 1st. It stipulating that users "may be limited to 50MB of browsing over 3G per month." The data cap only applies to older Kindle versions, including the Kindle Keyboard and Kindle DX. If you've got Amazon's latest e-reader hardware, then you're not missing anything -- the free web browsing option was sidestepped on the likes of the Kindle Touch.
Convert an old iPad into a dedicated e-reader
When iOS 6 arrives later this year, iPad pioneers who are still using their first-generation devices will find that they can't upgrade to the new operating system. If you're not handing that iPad over to your kids (or parents), you might wonder what you can do with the device. Sure, you could still run iOS 5 and all of your previous apps, but Macworld's Lex Friedman has a better idea -- turn that old iPad into a dedicated e-reader. While you can buy an Amazon Kindle for as little as US$79, there are some advantages to using an iPad as an e-reader. Compared to its one-trick brethren, the iPad has a more powerful processor, a brighter display, and the advantage of multi-touch gestures. On the other hand, that inexpensive Kindle is much lighter and more readable in daylight... Should you decide to keep the iPad as a Kindle substitute, Friedman suggests paring the distracting apps down to a minimum, disabling notifications (or even setting the device to Airplane Mode so it can't access the Internet), and locking the screen orientation. For software, there are plenty of reading apps -- Amazon's Kindle Reader, Apple's iBooks, Newsstand, Zinio, and even Nook and Kobo. Reading content from the Web is easy with apps like Instapaper ($3.99), Pocket (free), and Readability (free). What about you? Do you have a first-generation iPad that you'll be replacing? What are your ideas for repurposing that hardware? Leave us a note in the comments.
