10:08 AM by issybird in E-Book General | News

I went to purchase a book at Kobo just now and noticed that my Ebates button didn't go green. When I checked, I found that Kobo is no longer among the stores offering rebates through Ebates.com.

It used to be a very nice deal, especially as the rebate was alway calculated on the Kobo price before any coupons; the 5% back they offered most recenty translated to 95% off during the recent madness. Earlier, their 10% rebate knocked $13 off the price of my Glo, although I bought it with a $60 coupon.

The end of an era. And it makes me wonder if, now that Sony is dead in North America, if Kobo isn't poised to cut back on the deals and discounts. The generous coupons during the most recent contest perhaps suggest the alternative. Frankly, I don't get what's going on, but that's Kobo.

10:08 AM by fjtorres in E-Book General | News

US antitrust is primarily about consumer harm (hence the recent compensation awards) but it also offers (small) companies a venue for redress of anticompetitive behavior by other companies.
The bar is normally pretty high so there are few filings and even less successes but there is one big exception: when a company (or group) has already been found guilty of antitrust violations, the judge's findings of fact become indisputable "evidence" on which competitors claiming harm can base their claims of damages. The most recent example being the Microsoft antitrust case where the Judge ruled that MS had caused Netscape no harm but that their attempt to do so consituted an antitrust violation and thus he put them under antitrust monitoring for a decade. This was followed by dozens of private lawsuits from software companies seeking and often getting payouts, often for the results of their own bad decisions.
The bar is set high for anticompetitive antitrust cases but once it is lowered the claims multiply, which is why most targets of federal antitrust action settle with "no admision of guilt" to keep the evidence out of the public record.

In the price fix conspiracy case, the publishers settled to limit liability but since Apple refused to settle, the evidence and findings still ended up in the public record. Now comes word of the fallout: small independent ebookstores that have folded or died stillborn are suing Apple and the publishers for anticompetitive behavior, painting themselves as collateral damage of the conspirators' favoritism towards Apple.

Publishing Weekly has a (very slightly slanted) report on the lawsuits and the plaintiffs:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...st-claims.html

In DNAML vs. Apple Inc. et al, filed in September, 2013, the upstart Australian e-book retailer alleges the company was harmed "directly and as a proximate result" of the 2010 price-fixing scheme executed by Apple and the five agency publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Penguin). Now, this month, two related cases have been accepted by Cote: one filed by Lavoho, LLC, a "successor" to the Diesel eBook Store; and another from Abbey House Media, formerly BooksonBoard.

The most recent suits offer virtually identical claims to DNAML's 2013 suit—that the 2010 agency switch destroyed the retailers' ability to compete on price. All three plaintiffs share representation, and according to a letter filed by plaintiff attorneys after a January 2014 conference, the plaintiffs expect the cases to be consolidated.

The suits contain nearly identical preambles detailing Apple's liability finding by Judge Cote, and they press nearly identical claims: that the illegal collusion between Apple and the publishers ended the retailers' ability to bundle, discount, promote or otherwise engage in retail price competition, thus destroying each nascent e-book business. In each complaint, the plaintiffs were said to have business models "predicated on aggressive price competition."

PW takes a skeptical view of the suits because of the small size of the companies filing but anybody who remembers the aftermath of the Microsoft case knows that it is the smaller players that receive the most sympathetic treatment in court under antitrust enforcement. (Especially when the judge is annoyed.) And that once the small players win, the bigger ones pile on.

And in this case, if the small Adept-based ebookstores can make a case that gheh were harmed by the conspiracy to reduce competition in the BPH ebook market, then so can Adobe, Sony, and Google. And, because the Agency pricing of ebooks enabled Nook and Kindle to sell eink readers at or below cost, so can hardware-only reader vendors like Pocketbook, Bookeen, Aztak, etc. (Essentially anybody that signed up to sell generic Adept ebooks and hardware has at least a ghost of a chance.)

Once the rulings start piling up, the lawsuits start snowballing.
Just ask Microsoft; they ended up paying out billions.

Apple really should have settled.

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

If you've been too busy to check out MobileRead this week, check out our usual roundup:

E-Book General - News

• Diesel ebooks shutting down?

E-Book General - Reading Recommendations

• April 2014 Book Club Vote

06:52 AM by WT Sharpe in Reading Recommendations | Book Clubs

April 2014 MobileRead Book Club Vote

Help us choose a book as the December 2013 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 April 20th. Select from the following Official Choices with three nominations each:

• Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: LRF │ Amazon US / Kobo

• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
No links provided.

• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: / ePub / ePub (Complete Works) / Kindle │ Uncensored Version: Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / De Gruyter

• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: Oz Omnibus: BBeB/LRF (Illustrated) / ePub / Kindle / Kindle (Illustrated)

• The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf and Eugine Petrov
Amazon US

• The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Amazon US / Kobo

• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub / Kindle

• Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
No links provided.

• The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub / Kindle / Kindle (Books 1 & 2) │ Amazon

• Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub (D'Artagnan Romances, Vol 1) / ePub (French) / ePub (French/English) / Kindle (D'Artagnan Romances, Vol 1) / Kindle (French/English)

03:44 PM by geertm in E-Book General | News

Diesel eBooks is Closing Shop

Diesel eBooks will be closing at the end of this month. It’s been a great ride! We’re exploring our options – eBooks are still in the infant years and there are many opportunities opening up now and in the future.

IMPORTANT: you must download your eBooks by month end. Downloads will not be possible on April 1st. We want to thank you for being such loyal customers. Understand this doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t see Diesel in another form in the near future.

http://www.the-digital-reader.com/20...onth/#comments

According to one of the comments it is true.

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

What was going on this week at MobileRead? Here's your chance to catch-up if you missed something!

E-Book General - News

• Nook Press Expands to UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium

E-Book General - Reading Recommendations

• April 2014 Book Club Nominations

12:03 AM by WT Sharpe in Reading Recommendations | Book Clubs

MobileRead Book Club
April 2014 Nominations

Help us select the book that the MobileRead Book Club will read for April, 2014.

The nominations will run through midnight EST March 31 or until 10 books have made the list. The poll will then be posted and will remain open for five days.

Book selection category for April is:

Classics

In order for a book to be included in the poll it needs THREE NOMINATIONS (original nomination, a second and a third).

How Does This Work?
The Mobile Read Book Club (MRBC) is an informal club that requires nothing of you. Each month a book is selected by polling. On the last week of that month a discussion thread is started for the book. If you want to participate feel free. There is no need to "join" or sign up. All are welcome.

How Does a Book Get Selected?
Each book that is nominated will be listed in a poll at the end of the nomination period. The book that polls the most votes will be the official selection.

How Many Nominations Can I Make?
Each participant has 3 nominations. You can nominate a new book for consideration or nominate (second, third) one that has already been nominated by another person.

How Do I Nominate a Book?
Please just post a message with your nomination. If you are the FIRST to nominate a book, please try to provide an abstract to the book so others may consider their level of interest.

How Do I Know What Has Been Nominated?
Just follow the thread. This message will be updated with the status of the nominations as often as I can. If one is missed, please just post a message with a multi-quote of the 3 nominations and it will be added to the list ASAP.

When is the Poll?
The poll thread will open at the end of the nomination period, or once there have been 10 books with 3 nominations each. At that time a link to the initial poll thread will be posted here and this thread will be closed.

The floor is open to nominations. Please comment if you discover a nomination is not available as an ebook in your area.

Official choices with three nominations each:

(1) Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: LRF │ Amazon US / Kobo

(2) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
No links provided.

(3) The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: / ePub / ePub (Complete Works) / Kindle │ Uncensored Version: Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / De Gruyter

(4) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: Oz Omnibus: BBeB/LRF (Illustrated) / ePub / Kindle / Kindle (Illustrated)

(5) The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf and Eugine Petrov
Amazon US

(6) The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Amazon US / Kobo

(7) Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub / Kindle

(8) Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
No links provided.

(9) The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub / Kindle / Kindle (Books 1 & 2) │ Amazon

(10) Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub (D'Artagnan Romances, Vol 1) / ePub (French) / ePub (French/English) / Kindle (D'Artagnan Romances, Vol 1) / Kindle (French/English)

The nominations are now closed.

10:34 AM by DBDigital in E-Book General | News

In a email sent out today to all Nook Press (Barnes and Noble's epublishing system) users they announced expansion to UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium:

Dear Publisher,

You may notice some changes the next time you log into NOOK Press.
We've been working hard to get NOOK Press ready for some new guests –
starting today, publishers in the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain,
the Netherlands, and Belgium will be able to publish with NOOK Press
and reach Barnes & Noble's millions of book-loving customers. This means
even more great indie content for customers and increased visibility for
you and your NOOK Books in the months to come!

The changes we've made for this international expansion mean you can now:

View nookpress.com in 7 languages: Work and publish in US English, UK
English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Dutch. Select a new
language in the dropdown from any page in NOOK Press.

Set your EUR (€) list prices. If you have indicated that you have
Worldwide Rights, we’ll automatically convert the EUR list price from
your USD list price as we do for GBP prices, or you can enter your own
EUR price.

Thanks to the changes we've made, your titles will soon be on sale in
France, Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium if you've
selected Worldwide Rights in the NOOK Book Details of your project.
Because we have a very high volume of NOOK Press content, we are
making your titles available in those countries over several months.
We appreciate your patience as we work to put all NOOK Press content
on sale in our new marketplaces.

With these expanded sales opportunities, it's a great time to set up a
vendor account and get all of your books on sale, if you have not already
done so. By signing up now, you'll have NOOK Books on sale in just 72
hours. If you are looking for self-publishing advice or inspiration from
fellow authors, we've got you covered. Check out the NOOK Press Blog,
which we've launched as another way to bring together writers and
readers and to expand the conversation about self-publishing, both here
and in Europe.

We want to assure you that we've been working hard to implement the new
features at NOOK Press – including testing, testing, testing! As we open
up NOOK Press to international publishers, our primary concern is to make
sure that your experience is seamless. In case we missed something, please
let us know so that we can fix it right away. We've added a new contact
form so that you can send our support team an email directly from within
NOOK Press:
*removed as it was a unique link*

We want to take this time to thank you for being a valued partner, and
to wish you continued success in your self-publishing with NOOK!

Sincerely,

The NOOK Press Team

With the recent announcement that their Nook Windows app was being discontinued, this is surprising and perhaps encouraging showing that the nook is not quite dead yet. But I do find this comment interesting: "... will be able to publish with NOOK Press and reach Barnes & Noble's millions of book-loving customers." Considering they haven't been international before, they don't have millions of customers in these markets yet.