07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Another week, another steady stream of e-book goodness here on MobileRead. Our authentic roundup of what's been going on:

E-Book General - News

• UK e-book prices to rise from 1st January 2015
• B&N buys out Microsoft's Nook stake

E-Book General - Reading Recommendations

• December 2014 Club Vote

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• MobileRead Guideline Refinements

12:09 PM by fjtorres in E-Book General | News

From the WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/barne...eal-1417700850

The bookstore retailer bought out Microsoft’s preferred interest in Nook for about $120 million in cash and stock, freeing the software giant from further investments in the business.

Barnes & Noble added it expects the planned split of its Nook Media unit from its retail stores to occur by the end of August, behind its initial projection for a separation by March. Ending the partnership would also make it easier for Barnes & Noble to sell the division if it chooses to explore that option.

The disclosure came as Barnes & Noble reported a much weaker-than-expected profit for its November quarter, helping push its shares down more than 13% in early trading.

For its second quarter ended Nov. 1, the Nook segment’s revenue fell 41% to $63.9 million, while digital content sales fell 21% to $45.2 million. Device sales fell 64%, though cost-cutting helped stem the division’s loss in the quarter.

Sales at the company’s retail unit, meanwhile, fell 3.6% due partly to store closures.

More at the source.
If link expires, google the headline "Barnes & Noble, Microsoft End Nook Pact".

09:53 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

Below I present a few refinements to our existing guidelines. Nothing big there, but if you have the time, please quickly skim through them.

Book Uploads according to Life+70 Rule

Two weeks ago we successfully moved our servers to a new host. We said goodbye to Montreal, Canada and welcome to New Jersey, USA. Because of differing copyright laws, eBooks uploaded to this site must now be in the "life+70" public domain or licensed under a compatible Creative Commons license. This means that the author (or translator) of the book must have died at least 70 years before the start of the current year.

Feel free to use the report button if you have questions about a book's copyright status.

MobileRead Amazon Referral Tag

I want to be upfront. We're going to experiment by adding an official MobileRead tag to Amazon links posted here. So,

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476746583/

becomes

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476746583/?tag=mr060-20

For example, every time someone asks for some information on something, and you include a link to Amazon in your response, that link gets updated to include our tag. The commission we'd receive when a user makes a purchase through this link would help contribute towards the running costs of the site. The only difference is that Amazon will know that you came from MobileRead; no other information is shared and prices are the same.

As always, I appreciate your feedback and I want to make sure it is cool with most people.

Our general guideline remains. It is generally not allowed to deliberately post links containing commission, referral or affiliate tags in the forums (with very few exceptions, such as in clearly marked signatures, subject to moderator approval).

Keeping things family- and work-friendly

TL;DR: It is not permitted to post sexually explicit or erotic content.

We pride ourselves on being a family- and work-friendly community. Children visit this forum and, for better or worse, our conduct sets an example that can either foster or hinder a life-long interest in reading books. We also want parents to feel confident that this community is safe for their children to visit.

It goes without saying that flaming, cursing and trolling are not acceptable.

What's more difficult to define is where we draw the line with explicit content. It's been our policy for as long as I remember that users must not publish images or video that contain adult content, sexually oriented material, or might otherwise be considered offensive. Also sexual connotations or references have no place in this community. Yet, as of late we've noticed a trend among a handful of authors presenting literary works that would clearly fall under the rule of not being family-friendly. By clearly I mean the kind of content that you wouldn't want a child to see or that you might be embarrassed to view at work in front of colleagues. This could be a cover image, a book summary, or even endorsing links to said book. We will not accept this type of content any longer and reserve the right to remove posts that we deem inappropriate (yup, it's a judgment call).

Examples of related content not permitted include, but are not limited to, nudity, pornography, extreme profanity, erotica, sexually suggestive or explicit text.

Trust me this is not an expression of conservative views. Rather, it's about what we consider inappropriate when welcoming a broad audience including children from all over the world. Overall, I'm just repeating what I guess everyone already knows and it shouldn't affect much of our community.

Discussions related to DRM

A very long time ago eBooks were only for geeks (remember the Sony LIBRIe? ) Back then, discussions related to DRM were mostly in the interest of those who liked to tinker with technologies (and crack existing protections) and those who didn't want to pay for their content (i.e. warez it). Times have changed, and nowadays the topic of DRM is much more related to discussing the various eBook formats and vendor lock-ins. In this context, we have slightly updated our rules.

While DRM removal may be discussed in the abstract, the following are not allowed at MobileRead:

• discussing DRM removal to pirate content;
• providing detailed how-to instructions;
• uploading of DRM-removal tools;
• direct download links to DRM-removal tools.

Nothing really new here, except, now it's OK to name the relevant tools and also to provide links to legitimate sites that may discuss certain aspects of this topic in more detail than we would permit. For example, a link to this Ars Technica article is now OK.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask or contact me directly.

Cheers!

09:25 AM by Little.Egret in E-Book General | News

UK and many other EU e-book prices to rise from 1st January 2015

At present a Kindle store e-book sold in the EU is 'supplied' by Amazon Media EU S.à r.l. in Luxembourg and so in accordance with the current EU VAT rules pays Luxembourg VAT at 3% (may be different in Sweden).

From 1st January 2015 Amazon must use the VAT rate for the customer's location (as for mail order) so a UK customer will be charged VAT at 20% and so the bill will be 16.5 % more.

So buy before the year end, or buy from Baen.

Diane Duane complained about the uncertainties and impact on small
businesses.

http://dianeduane.com/outofambit/201...-cyber-monday/

== more detail and links
After /5 years/ of preparation the EU has mandated that VAT (think sales tax) be charged on all EU internet purchases of ‘Electronically supplied services’ such as downloads, based on the VAT rate appropriate to the customer’s location, just like mail order physical goods (currently supplier location is used).

From 1st January 2015

Which means they had to define what was to happen if you bought a ringtone using a mobile or hotspot from a hotel, plane, train or ship.

The final regulation came out a year ago
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/...01:0007:EN:PDF
http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs...es_2015_en.pdf

I wonder if there was any difference between pay for e-book and be given download link (Baen, Diane Duane) and buy e-book immediate download (Kindle store) when you were on holiday or working in a different EU country.

http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/lea...stop-shop.html
http://onemanbandaccounting.co.uk/eu-vat-changes-2015/

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...-one-stop-shop

http://www.clarejosa.com/articles/fr...vat-moss-mess/

http://womenonthebusinessstage.co.uk...uct-suppliers/

http://www.theguardian.com/small-bus...cro-businesses

02:03 AM by WT Sharpe in Reading Recommendations | Book Clubs

December 2014 MobileRead Book Club Vote

Help us choose a book as the December 2014 eBook for the MobileRead Book Club. The poll will be open for 5 days. There will be no runoff vote unless the voting results a tie, in which case there will be a 3 day run-off poll. This is a visible poll: others can see how you voted. It is You may cast a vote for each book that appeals to you.

We will start the discussion thread for this book on December 20th. Select from the following Official Choices with three nominations each:

• The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub (Complete Works) / LibriVox (Audiobook) / Project Gutenberg (Various Formats)

• The Altar of the Dead by Henry James
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub (Complete Works) | Kindle / LibriVox (Audiobook) / Project Gutenberg (Various Formats)

• Mistletoe in Manhattan: A Christmas Story by Talli Roland
Amazon Ca / Amazon UK / Amazon US

• The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub | Kindle

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

In case you've missed any MobileRead news from this week, here is our usual roundup:

E-Book General - News

• Amazon Unlocks Fire Phone & Slashes Price

05:51 PM by tubemonkey in E-Book General | News

It was just a matter of time before they did this. Sitting on inventory that wasn't moving, this was the logical next step.

Amazon Fire Phone Gets Big Discount, Drops to $199 Off-Contract

On Wednesday, Amazon surprised consumers with an incredible deal: an unlocked Fire Phone for just a mere $199. Now customers can use the phone on any GSM network including AT&T, T-Mobile and other compatible wireless carriers. Previously, Amazon had the phone listed for $449.

Back in July, Amazon launched its highly-anticipated Fire Phone as an AT&T exclusive. The device cost consumers $199 with a two-year contract for the 32 GB version, and $299 with a contract for the 64 GB model. Six weeks later, the phone's price dipped down to $0.99 with the same two-year contract. The starting price without a contract was $650.

07:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Been so busy reading e-books that you haven't had time to keep up on the week's news? Here's some of what you've been missing:

E-Book General - News

• Nokia enters the Tablet market

E-Book General - General Discussions

• Kobo Now Listing File Type and DRM

E-Book General - Reading Recommendations

• December 2014 Book Club Nominations

Miscellaneous - Announcements

• Scheduled Server Migration Nov 23 (Sunday) @ 3:00am EST