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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.
Apple calls Dept. of Justice settlement proposal unlawful
Apple is making it known that it will not accept the ebook settlement terms proposed by the Department of Justice, says a report in Paid Content. Under the DOJ's proposal, Apple would have to sever its current contracts and renegotiate new ones with three book publishers - HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster. Apple says that this outcome is "fundamentally unfair, unlawful, and unprecedented" and denies the company its right to a fair trial. This settlement is the result of an investigation into Apple's agency model pricing agreement with book publishers. In this model, publishers are allowed to set ebook prices in the iBookstore and cannot sell the electronic books at a lower price through another retailer. This hurt Amazon, which was paying publishers the wholesale cost, but selling the books to customers at extremely low prices, often at a loss. Rather than accept the settlement, Apple asked the court to defer judgement on the settlement until the case made its way through the court. The trial is expected to begin in June 2013. [Via Apple Insider]
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.
Kobo for Android gets updated with support for extra languages, more Facebook integration
App updates are always nice, right? Well, if you're an avid user of Kobo's intellectual offerings on Android handsets and slates, you'll be happy to know the all-things-eReader service has rolled out a fresh update to its eBooks application. Most notably, this new version brings support for an array of new languages within the app, such as French, Italian, Dutch, German and Spanish. That's not it, however, and in addition to gaining a "multi-language experience," Kobo's eBooks application now also offers an in-book progress indicator, a two-page landscape view for folks using tablets and the ability to share current readings with friends on Facebook or Kobo Pulse. As usual, you'll find the refreshed goods inside Google's Play store, link for that is down below.
Judge: Walter Isaacson doesn't have to hand over biography notes
It's beginning to look like we'll need to change our name to "The Unofficial Apple Legal Weblog," since we have a story of one more case involving Apple. This story is in reference to a class action suit regarding alleged price fixing on ebooks by Apple. Lawyers for the plaintiffs have requested access to Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson's private notes from his interviews with Jobs, but the judge in the case has ruled that Isaacson doesn't need to comply. Isaacson invoked reporter's privilege and refused to hand over source material and a list of documents and recordings involving his time with Jobs. U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote agreed on July 20 that Isaacson didn't need to comply with the request, but gave the class-action lawyers an out -- they can try again to force Isaacson to comply provided that they pass a legal test that sometimes allows disclosure of journalists' non-confidential material. One lawyer for the plaintiff, Steven Berman, argues that the reporter's privilege is moot, since Jobs never asked Isaacson for confidentiality. Berman also says that he has another source for Jobs' comments about ebooks. The Department of Justice is trying hard to knock down the time-honored reporter's privilege in a case where they're attempting to get a Wall Street Journal reporter to testify in a case against a former CIA officer. Fortunately, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals is friendly towards a free press, commenting in another case that "wholesale exposure of press files ... would burden the press with heavy costs of subpoena compliance, and could otherwise impair its ability to perform its duties ... [it] would risk "the symbolic harm of making journalists appear to be an investigative arm of the judicial system, the government, or private parties." [via paidContent]
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.
US Senator says DOJ should drop Apple ebook lawsuit
Senator Charles Schumer of New York (right) appealed to the U.S. Department of Justice yesterday in the Wall Street Journal to drop its lawsuit against Apple and a number of major publishers. The DOJ alleges that Apple and the publishers colluded to raise prices in the ebook market. Schumer states that "the suit will restore Amazon to the dominant position atop the e-books market it occupied for years before competition arrived in the form of Apple. If that happens, consumers will be forced to accept whatever prices Amazon sets." Schumer points out in his guest editorial that after Apple entered the market with iBooks, competition increased. Amazon's market share fell from 90 percent to 60 percent, and as a result the company had to "expand its catalog, invest in innovation, and reduce the prices of its Kindle reading devices" -- all things that are good for consumers. He notes that the average price for ebooks fell from US$9 to $7, while the DOJ looked at the fact that prices on a very few new releases have gone up. Whether Schumer's printed entreaty will make a difference to the Department of Justice is unknown, but it's interesting to see an influential member of the Senate come to the defense of Apple and the publishing industry in this case.
Google Play Books starts a new chapter in France
Now that the legal dust has settled and Google's publishing woes in 'ol Gaul have been swept under the rug, it's back to business as usual. Starting today, the land of Jerry Lewis lovers will have access to books on Google Play, making it the fifth European country to participate in Mountain View's online ebook store. Initially, the available catalog of domestic titles will count in the "hundreds of thousands" -- a sizable library that will surely expand as publishers grow comfortable with the Play ecosystem and more deals are struck -- and is supplemented by existing arrangements with international publishers. So, if you always meant to brush up on your Flaubert or Fifty Shades of Grey, well, now's your chance La France. Official PR after the break.
iBook Lessons: Picking vendors, price, and exclusivity
iBook Lessons is a continuing series about ebook writing and publishing. There's a dilemma faced by many new ebook authors: how to sell a book for "not much at all" and still earn a decent living. Apple and Amazon policies complicate this decision. Amazon offers a multi-choice royalty system (all prices are USD). You can charge up to $2.98 for your ebook and earn 35% of the list price. That equates to just over 34 cents for a $0.99 ebook. charge between $2.99 and $9.99 for your ebook and earn 70% of the list price less delivery costs, which are $0.15 per megabyte. For big illustration-filled books, this can be a deal breaker. TUAW reader Rosie McG's color photo book ships at over 40MB in size. She writes, "With my book priced at $9.99, my net would have been less than zero." charge between $2.99 and $9.99 for your ebook and earn a straight 35% of the list price with no delivery fees. That equates to between $1.05 to $3.49 of earnings. With Apple, you earn a straight 70% royalty on all sales, regardless of price and you can add up to 2GB of content. So long as you deliver in straight EPUB, without using iBooks Author, you can also sell in any other outlet. So there's no question, right? Sell in both places, and just try to make the most of the Amazon situation as best you can, yes? It turns out the situation isn't so simple, especially for new ebook authors. That's because the $0.99-book, which earns you 34 cents at Amazon and 69 cents at Apple, is the workhorse of the new author. It, like its App Store-based compatriot, represents many authors' first step into self-publishing. And Amazon, with its Kindle Direct Publishing arm, has thrown a big monkey wrench into this decision. That's because Amazon has two weapons on its side. First, it's monster presence in the ebook arena. Kindle titles can be read on nearly any platform you throw at it, from iOS to Android, OS X to Windows. That alone gives Kindle books a cachet not found with iBooks. Authors report that the majority of their sales, by quite a margin, come from Amazon. It's not unusual for the Amazon-iBooks split to be closer to 75%-25% than 50%-50%. It's a big incentive to pick Amazon. The second incentive is KDP Select, Amazon's exclusive borrowing program. In exchange for committing your book exclusively to Amazon, your title can be borrowed for free by any Amazon Prime member. Each member may borrow one title per month. If they choose yours, the reward is vast. A $0.99 book that normally earns 34 cents will bring in over $2. This May, the earnings were $2.26 per borrow: over 6 times your normal earnings. (Amazon has not yet announced June earnings. April earnings were $2.48, March $2.18, February $2.01.) To get in on this, you must drop your book from iBooks and any other vendor, and agree to an exclusivity period of 90-days at a time. KDP Select is transformative. It changes your list price from "Do I really want to waste a buck on this book" to "Oh, that book was good, let me pay a little extra to keep it." Psychologically and emotionally, you get to keep that $0.99 list price to entice a value-reward tradeoff from potential buyers, but the real money comes from getting people to give it a try. Both Steve Sande and I have participated in KDP Select since it launched this past winter. And it's been a surprising source of income for a couple of our books (on using the Kindle Fire with 3rd party content and for setting up the device's email). Neither topic was Apple-related and both books outperformed our hopes in terms of earnings for borrows. The $2.99 books, which would earn us under $2 per sale after delivery charges, consistently earn more than $2 per borrow due to the well-funded KDP library pool. And that brings me back to the fundamental question. How would you, yourself, advise a new author to choose given this situation, especially for the $0.99 or $1.99 first title? Would you recommend going for KDP Select exclusivity and borrowing earnings or would you suggest marketing to iBookstore and the other outlets? And, given our TUAW audience and their likely book topics, would writing a book specifically about an Apple-related subject-matter affect that advice, and if so, how? You tell us. Add your comment below and sound off about iBookstore, the KDP Select program, and markets.
iBook Lessons: Adding ASL support to iBooks
iBook Lessons is a continuing series about ebook writing and publishing. Bilingual books have existed for a long time. Bilingual ebooks have also shown a presence in online stores. Adding American Sign Language (ASL) editions to ebooks? That's a proposition that has been hard to accomplish although possible under current EPUB standards. The reason is that video and text must coexist on the virtual page. That's hard to do with ebooks, and impossible in conventional books. With the iPad and iBooks Author, that challenge has now become possible. Recently, author Adam Stone published his first ASL/English bilingual ebook. Called Pointy Three, it tells the story of a fork that's missing one of its prongs but not, as the description points out, its spirit. The fork journeys through the land of Dinnertime, having adventures and looking for a place where he belongs. The book's possibly unique ASL/English approach offers something new and special. Stone explains that children who use both languages, or who are learning ASL, benefit from this bilingual approach. On his blog, he writes, "[It] is not simply an English story translated into ASL; it is a story created with both languages in mind, swirling around the creative consciousness." His motivation sprang from a desire to let children play with both languages. With iBooks Author, Apple provided the perfect tool for his needs. "I want to show everybody that it can be done easily, quickly, and cheaply," he wrote on his blog. "You don't need to talk to a publisher; you are the publisher." He added in a note to TUAW that "Apple products constantly open new frontiers." I had the pleasure of sitting down with him to discuss his journey into iBooks Author, and talk about how the tool had inspired him. TUAW: So how did you first hear about iBooks Author? And did you immediately think about ASL? Stone: I first heard about it during Apple's education event this past Winter. I'd already been experimenting with American Sign Language ebooks. I was trying to use Composer by Demibooks but I was having a lot of trouble with that particular tool. When I saw the iBooks Author product I immediately knew it was perfect for what I had in mind. I work at P.S. 347 The ASL and English Lower School (it's an ASL/English bilingual school). I use ASL all day so it's always on my mind. (I dedicate the book to the school, in fact - at the end of the book.) iBooks Author looked super easy to use. Obviously video was a prominent part of the iBooks Author presentation. The layout tools looked flexible. And I especially liked how it was already linked to the iBookstore; it meant that publishing it would be easy. TUAW: How did you develop the story for Pointy Three? And did you always intend to be writing for children? Stone: I wanted this book to be a point of inspiration for others. There are a lot of us who are concerned about the lack of ASL/English materials for children and who are thinking of ways to ameliorate that. So this book was first and foremost to set an example -- to tell others, "You can do this too! We all can do this!" I wanted to do a children's book first. I'm already a first grade teacher; I read children's books every day. I think adults should read children's books more often. They really are magical. Pointy Three came to me out of the blue about a week after the Apple presentation. I was sitting on the N train and suddenly I thought of a three-pronged fork. And I typed out the whole story using Notes on my iPhone. It hasn't changed very much since then. I think wanting to belong somewhere is such an universal theme. Any child can relate to that. TUAW: What kind of development effort in terms of hours did it take to build this book? Stone: I think it took me about 40 hours, max. I polished the story and shared it with a couple of friends. Then I found an illustrator, Joyce, and we met a couple of times where she showed me some sketches. Then I connected with Lauren, the ASL storyteller, and we did the whole video shoot in less than three hours in her living room in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I sent a rough edit of the video to Joyce and she did the illustrations based off Lauren's telling of the story. The illustrations took about a month and half. That was the longest part of the development process--waiting for them to be done. When I got them, it was just a matter of cleaning them up, adding them into iBooks Author along with the video, laying them out just right with the text and changing the text to match the video and the illustrations. I showed a PDF version to a few people for edits, and then publishing. I started around the middle of February, I think, and finished in mid-June. TUAW: Were there any lessons you learned specifically about shooting video for inclusion in an iBooks Author product? Stone: The interesting thing about having an ASL component is that you can't go back and reshoot the ASL - the signer will look different; the lighting will be different, and so forth. So whatever footage I had, I had to make sure that the English text matched it. There's one part in the book where the ASL version and the English version of a specific sentence are on separate pages. It was a goof made while shooting the video, and I tried to change the English text to match, but it didn't quite work. But that's okay. What is significant in one language may not be as significant in another language. English and ASL are different languages with very different storytelling and cultural properties. But one big lesson I learned - I edited it all in iMovie '09 (or is it '10? whatever the latest version is) and exported it to HD format using Media Browser in the Share menu. Much to my surprise, that format is not compatible with iBooks Author. I had to compress and convert it to "Apple TV" format with a data stream of 2 MBps in 720p - which was perfect. I used MPEG Streamclip. This discussion thread helped a lot. So - that was a big surprise for me - that iMovie couldn't easily export to a format compatible with iBooks Author. No biggie, though. TUAW: Do you worry about the product size? It's over 100MB, about 116MB if I remember correctly, but I think you nicely avoided the problem of a product that was too ginormous. Stone: I knew video would make the iBook big. I experimented with different data stream rates, basically 1 MBps, 1.5, 2, and 3. I found that 2 was perfect. I also wasn't sure just how big the image files could be; each page has about a 1.5-2 MB PNG file for the illustration. TUAW: Did you ever consider doing this project as an application instead? Stone: I have zero app programming skills. To do so would incur lots of overhead costs and stuff like that. I didn't have time for that. I knew all I wanted to do was make a book and iBooks Author fit the bill. I know of other teams working on ASL/English storybook apps, though. Of course I would love to make the book as interactive as I can: let kids play with Pointy Three, move it around the screen and fun stuff like that. But iBooks Author is strictly for making books with interactivity that is very boxed-in in the form of widgets. I see that at the end of conventional iBooks from major publishers: the very last page has a nice widget where you can immediately give a star rating and write a review. I tried to research on how to do the same thing for my book but couldn't find the solution. So my implementation is very clunky: a hyperlink to the book's iTunes Store page. TUAW: Are there any other features you'd put into future books? Stone: Since publishing, I've got some feedback that sound/reading aloud feels missing from the book. People have gotten accustomed to children's books on the iPad speaking aloud. My book is silent - like a normal book, and like any other book I read on the iPad - I'm deaf so reading is always a silent experience. So I didn't really think about that until some people told me they wanted the book to talk aloud to them, too. I'm still researching on how that works. It's not a native feature of iBooks Author, but I heard people have found ways to add read aloud to iBooks. But it sounds difficult. And you know what...it' s interesting because Apple has built in voice over. Why can't Apple allow iBooks readers to access that directly? Seems simple. TUAW: Any more thoughts you want to add about this project? I loved doing it. I want to do more. Surely this isn't Pointy Three's last adventure! Most of all, I hope others do it as well. I told some people, "If you can put together a Powerpoint, you can do this." That's how easy it was. If people are interested in adding ASL support to their books and want to hire me, you can reach me at my blog or Facebook page. I also hang out on Twitter. TUAW: Thank you for taking the time to chat!
iBook Lessons: The absolute beginner
iBook Lessons is a continuing series about ebook writing and publishing. I get asked this a lot: what is the absolute minimum it takes to get started in ebook publishing. The answer is this: a manuscript in Microsoft Word .doc or .docx format, an Amazon account, and a smile. Everything else is gravy. With just those items, you can get started publishing on Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) system and start earning money from what you write. Just agree to KDP's terms and conditions, provide Amazon with a bank account routing number for your earnings, and if you are an American citizen, a Social Security number. You can find all the information you need to provide on this webpage. You can use a personal account to set up your direct deposit, although you'll probably want to set up a separate business account instead. Check around for whatever free checking deals are currently in your area. These days, in the US, expect to leave a few hundred dollars deposited in the account in order to skip fees. Once you've signed up, you head over to your KDP dashboard to upload and describe your ebook. You won't need an ISBN, you won't need to pre-format your book for mobi or EPUB, you just select the doc file from your desktop, upload it, and let Amazon do all the rest. It's insanely easy. What's more, your Kindle book can be read on nearly any platform out there from iOS to Android, from Mac to Windows. In exchange for selling your book, Amazon takes a fixed 30% of the sales price (which may range from $2.99 to $9.99) off the top plus "delivery fees," which amount to $0.15/megabyte. In other words, Amazon is not the place for you if you intend to sell image-heavy picture books. There are two exceptions to this model. First, if your book costs under $2.99, you must sell it using a flat 35% royalty option (they keep 65% of list price). Second, if you want to bypass the delivery fee model, you may opt into the 35% program for higher-priced ebooks. What if you absolutely need to sell through iBooks? Then, you'll either have to start doing a bit more work in terms of securing an ISBN, filling out paperwork and contracts, and converting to EPUB, or you can look into a third party-Apple approved aggregator. Apple requires: ISBN numbers for the books you want to distribute Delivery in EPUB format, where the book passes EpubCheck 1.0.5 a US Tax ID an iTunes account backed up by a credit card An easy way to work through this is to sell through an agregator like Smashwords. In exchange for a further cut of your profits, they distribute your ebooks to a wide range of stores, including the iBookstore. Instead of earning 70%, you earn 60% and Smashwords handles all the distribution details, including ISBNs. They promise: Free ISBNs Free ebook conversion to nine formats Free unlimited anytime-updates to book and metadata Regardless of where you publish, spend as much time as you can writing a compelling book. And, don't forget the proofreading! [For Federico Viticci, who asked]
E-book price fixing court date set for 2013
The Justice Department has been ready to take Apple to task over these recent allegations of e-book price fixing, and now a court date has been set: Apple will have to face the music almost a year from now, on June 3, 2013. Apple, Macmillan and the Penguin Group are the targets in the case, and while each of them has denied any formal price-fixing in the past, the court will do a little formal digging into those claims. A year is quite a long ways away, but stay tuned and we'll see exactly what case the Justice Department plans to lay out against Apple and the other publishing companies then. [via Engadget]
E-book price fixing trial set for 2013: Apple, Macmillan and Penguin prepare for courtroom brawl
The Justice Department meant business when it accused Apple and five other publishers of price-rigging e-books, and are officially taking Cupertino and two publishers to court. In a hearing on Friday, Judge Denise Cote set a bench trial for June 3, 2013, putting Apple, Macmillan and Penguin Group on the defense. The government's allegations focus largely on agency pricing, which sees booksellers taking a 30 percent cut of each sale in lieu of buying the books at wholesale and setting their own prices. Apple and Macmillan have already denied the Justice Department's claims, of course -- but that wasn't on the stand, was it?
Kobo eReader Touch Edition packs bags for Japan, books flight for July
Rakuten's $315 million buyout of Kobo will bear some e-reader fruit come July. The e-tailer's CEO and chairman, Hiroshi Mikitani, announced plans to release the Kobo eReader Touch Edition in Japan next month for 10,000 yen (on par with its $130 US sticker price). Timing is key, of course -- murmurs of the Kindle Touch's Japanese debut haven't escaped Mikitani's notice. "As a Japanese company, we cannot lose (to overseas rivals)," he told The Asahi Shimbun. Rakuten hopes to use the e-reader to export Japanese content, and aims to have 50,000 titles available by the end of 2012. Pre-orders kick off on July 2, with more details to come next month.
iBook Lessons: Publishing costs
iBook Lessons is a continuing series about ebook writing and publishing. Andrew Hyde jumped into the ebook business with both feet. After fully funding a KickStarter project to raise start-up costs for his "This Book is about Travel," he published his manuscript to a variety of vendors. His outlets included Amazon's Kindle store, Apple's iBooks, and B&N's Nook, as well as Gumroad, a DRM-free PDF seller. What he found is that a ten-dollar ebook with lots of pictures brings home quite different earnings, depending on the vendor. In particular, he got hit -- and hit hard -- by Amazon's delivery fees. His 18 MB ebook costs him US$2.58 per Amazon download, which is a substantial overhead. Amazon details its delivery charges on this KDP help page. As an author, you pay $0.15 per megabyte in delivery charges, in addition to the 30% off-the-top costs Amazon charges. An image-heavy book will hit you hard in the pocketbook. That's quite different from Apple, which is happy to host resource-packed ebooks for a straight 30%. Hyde points out that delivering the same content using Amazon Web Services S3 would cost about a penny for each five downloads, bringing the Amazon mark up to about 129,000% in his calculation. So why sell Amazon? It's the demand. 51% of his Kickstarter supporters requested Kindle format, and 73% of his first 300 digital orders were Kindle. For all that Amazon charges, you don't make money on the books you don't sell. Hopefully, if enough authors speak up, Amazon will adjust its fee structure -- especially since many deliveries now happen over WiFi, not just Whispernet. Apple is providing an ever improving alternative for many readers, as I can personally see over time in the shift in sales of my ebooks. With its iBooks Author tool, allowance of books of up to 2GB in size, and strict 30% cut, Apple makes resource-rich books a more attractive prospect, assuming authors can find their customer base. Amazon remains the 800-pound gorilla in the ebook room. That may not always be so. Thanks, John Fricker
Sony launches web store for e-Books, Android app also gets refresh
Sony has decided to join the web-based shopping party, launching an online reader store for its e-inked devices and companion apps. Any e-Books purchased will arrive ready-to-read on the Reader app or other suitably wireless device, with titles also working on any Adobe DRM-supported apps and devices. Sony's Reader app has benefited from a UI redesign, the addition of a landscape view and improved stability. Hit up the source to grab the update -- before your phone tells you to.
Inkling for Web puts iPad books in a browser
We've discussed Inkling's interactive digital textbooks numerous times here on TUAW, both in terms of the products the publisher has released and in comparison with Apple's own iBooks Author-created textbooks. Now the company has announced a way to read its books in Webkit-based web browsers. Matt McInnis, Founder and CEO of Inkling, announced today that the company has introduced an HTML5-based Web client known as Inkling for Web. Initial support for Inkling for Web will be on the desktop versions of Chrome and Safari. Although mobile Safari and Chrome also support the Web client, MacInnis noted that the Inkling app for iPad is better optimized for touch. Inkling for Web brings the company's travel guides, cookbooks, how-to books, and textbooks to Mac and PC users, complete with all of the interactive 3D graphics, multimedia, and social sharing that are in the iOS app. Considering that Amazon has a Kindle Web reader for all of its content, it's surprising that Apple still hasn't created a Mac OS or Web client for iBooks.
