06:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's time for our weekly roundup of what's new and interesting in the world of e-books.

E-Book General - News

• The guardian: Self-publishers are...
• “Sony Developing New DRM to Make Used eBooks Viable”
• Netherlands Amazon Store now online
• Amazon Wins Auction for .Book Domain
• Amazon and Hachette Resolve Dispute
• Family Library now available for Kindle eReaders

04:35 AM by tubemonkey in E-Book General | News

New Features for Kindle E-Readers Now Available

New features including Word Wise and Family Library coming to Kindle e-readers as part of a free, over-the-air software update

Amazon today announced a software update for Kindle e-readers that includes exclusive features such as Word Wise and Family Library. This free, over-the-air software update will be delivered automatically in the coming weeks to the newly announced $79 Kindle and Kindle Voyage, as well as the most recent version of Kindle Paperwhite, or you can visit www.amazon.com/kindlesoftwareupdates to download the software update starting today.

Family Library—For the first time, you can access not only your own Kindle books, but also books from the Amazon account of a spouse or partner. See a screenshot: www.amazon.com/family-library.

04:35 AM by tagboy in E-Book General | News

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/te...1&pgtype=Blogs

or

http://tinyurl.com/oc9yolv

06:51 AM by SteveEisenberg in E-Book General | News

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...ok-domain.html

The new generic TLD strings (including .buy which Amazon also won) were introduced by ICANN in an effort to address a maxed out marketplace for .com names. ICANN hopes to foster increased commercial activity in the Internet name marketplace.

Amazon won the auction despite a filing by the Association of American Publishers in 2013 that opposed its bid, and described the possible control of the .book TLD by the retailer, or by any private company, to be counter to the public interest.

05:07 PM by Katsunami in E-Book General | News

Source

Synopsis:

Starting next Wednesday, Amazon will start selling e-readers, 20.000 books in Dutch, and 3 million books in other languages in The Netherlands. Amazon hopes to be able to make a difference regarding their devices and apps functionality, as they think they will not be able to lower the price of e-books in The Netherlands. "Normally, the price of a book is decided by the publisher or the author," says Amazon.

This will put Amazon in a very different position towards publishers, compared with the US, where Amazon is now fighting Hachette regarding e-book pricing. "Dutch publishers are modern, and have embraced digital reading, so negotiations went well, compared to other countries," says Ezequiel Szafir.

Amazon will be selling around 20K books in Dutch; less than Bol.com, who is working together with Kobo, selling around 30K titles in Dutch. Amazon does sell a lot more titles in other languages; 3 million vs. 2 million. Almost 60% of Dutch e-books in the Netherlands are sold by Bol.com.

Amazon will sell three Kindles:
Kindle Basic, €59.
Kindle Paperwhite, €109 (temporarily; later €129)
Kindle Voyage, €189

Books sold by Amazon can only be read on the Kindle. However, Dutch stores now normally sell EPUB ooks protected by a watermark only, which will make them readable on all (EPUB) devices and apps.

It's not yet clear if other parts of Amazon, such as clothes an physical goods will be brought over to the Netherlands.

03:57 AM by disconnected in E-Book General | News

http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-n...-ebooks-viable

From the article --

“Sony plans on making their new eBook encryption system very appealing towards publishers and e-reader manufactures.”

“ I have heard from a reputable source that Sony already has six publishers locked up and will be leveraging those relationship in order to establish new ones.”

“…. define a clear path of ownership, this will allow people to sell a used eBook and it will actually physically disappear from the original owners account.”

I don’t even want to imagine a future in which Sony would be the guardian of what is now MY library – where half of my books disappear and they tell me I must have sold them.

09:18 AM by fjtorres in E-Book General | News

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...elf-publishing

The success of EL James and her Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy did much to overturn the stereotype of a self-published author. Now academic research further challenges the image of eccentric hobbyists scribbling away in their sheds by revealing that it is middle-aged and well-educated women who dominate the growing e-publishing market.

Alison Baverstock, an associate professor in publishing at Kingston University, Surrey, said her research showed a clear gender split, with 65% of self-publishers being women and 35% men. Nearly two-thirds of all self-publishers are aged 41 to 60, with a further 27% aged over 61. Half are in full-time employment, 32% have a degree and 44% a higher degree.

Baverstock said there was a widespread misunderstanding about who decides to self-publish a book, and how the genre was changing the publishing industry.

Nicola Solomon, chief executive of the Society of Authors, said that self-publishing had “come of age”, was making decent returns for some and was not just for people who want to be published at any cost.

A quarter of self-publishers already considered themselves to be writers. “Publishers are narrowing around safer options, bigger brand names. Lots of middle list authors, with a steady return, are too small for them to engage with,” Solomon added.

Baverstock said that, far from feeling desperation, there was a consistently very high satisfaction with self-publishing. Nor did it necessarily mean going it alone. In current research she is tracking self-publishers’ rising use of freelance editors and marketing and legal experts after discovering in a 2012 survey that 59% had used an editor – removing one of the last distinctions between published and self-published books.

The rising demand for freelance editors means the quality is rising. She said that self-publishers had to take personal responsibility for the management and production, so opening up an understanding of how publishing worked. “This will hopefully diversify participation, widen involvement. The author with experience of self-publishing is empowered,” she said.

More at the source, including this:

Presenting her work to the Westminster Media Forum on the prospects for books, publishing and libraries , Baverstock said there were popular subjects that traditional publishers had ignored, including “respectable soft porn” and “gentle memoirs of everyday disasters, such as losing a child”. Most publishers, she said, were being outpaced by a heady mix of democratisation and digital distribution, because they came from a “very limited gene pool … all agree on what they like … they know each other, and are not necessarily in touch with popular taste.

Ouch.

06:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

If you've been a bit too busy to keep up, here are a few of our favorite stories from the past week.

E-Book General - News

• Scribd adds Audiobooks to its Plan