MobileRead Forums

Mon March 31 2014

E Ink forecasts loss as ebook device demand falls
11:13 AM by charmian in E-Book General \| News http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/.../29/2003586752 “E Ink needs to strengthen its non-e-book businesses in order to better its financial performance,” Taipei-based Horizon Securities analyst Stanley Hsu (許家銘) said by telephone. Hsu said the global ebook device market will no longer be able to achieve high shipment growth due to the rise of tablets, since consumers are able to read ebooks offered by Amazon or Kobo on their tablets. Citing studies by Horizon Securities, Hsu said shipments of e-book devices reached a peak of 20 million units in 2012 and then fell to 16 million units last year. The e-ink reader market is not doing too well (double digit percentage decline). This makes me suspect this year we'll see only incremental spec bumps in new e-ink readers (if any).
[ 197 replies ]

Kobo No Longer at Ebates
11:08 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.
[ 4 replies ]

Antitrust fallout: retailers sue conspirators
11:08 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.
[ 193 replies ]

Sat March 29 2014

MobileRead Week in Review: 03/22 - 03/29
07:00 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

Thu March 27 2014

April 2014 Book Club Vote
07:52 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 Spoiler: Dreiser's unsparing story of a country girl's rise to riches as the mistress of a wealthy man marked the beginning of the naturalist movement in America. Both its subject matter and Dreiser's objective, nonmoralizing approach made it highly controversial, and only a heavily edited version could be published in 1900. • Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky No links provided. Spoiler: An Amazon blurb: Supreme masterpiece recounts in feverish, compelling tones the story of Raskolnikov, an impoverished student tormented by his own nihilism, and the struggle between good and evil. • 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 Spoiler: From Wikipedia: The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine. The magazine's editors feared the story was indecent as submitted, so they censored roughly 500 words, without Wilde's knowledge, before publication. But even with that, the story was still greeted with outrage by British reviewers, some of whom suggested that Wilde should be prosecuted on moral grounds, leading Wilde to defend the novel aggressively in letters to the British press. Wilde later revised the story for book publication, making substantial alterations, deleting controversial passages, adding new chapters, and including an aphoristic Preface that has since become famous in its own right. The amended version was published by Ward Lock & Co in April 1891. Some scholars believe that Wilde would today have wanted us to read the version he originally submitted to Lippincott's. The novel tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Basil is impressed by Dorian's beauty and becomes infatuated with him, believing his beauty is responsible for a new mode in his art. Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil's, and becomes enthralled by Lord Henry's world view. Espousing a new hedonism, Lord Henry suggests the only things worth pursuing in life are beauty and fulfilment of the senses. Realizing that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian (whimsically) expresses a desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait Basil has painted would age rather than he. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, and when he subsequently pursues a life of debauchery, the portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, with each sin displayed as a disfigurement of his form, or through a sign of aging. The Picture of Dorian Gray is considered a work of classic Gothic fiction with a strong Faustian theme. • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum Patricia Clark Memorial Library: Oz Omnibus: BBeB/LRF (Illustrated) / ePub / Kindle / Kindle (Illustrated) Spoiler: We all know and love the movie, but as we all know "the book is always better than the movie". Let's find out if that is true and discuss together... • The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf and Eugine Petrov Amazon US Spoiler: Book Description (from Amazon.com): Publication Date: December 2, 2013 Ostap Bender is an unemployed con artist living by his wits in postrevolutionary Soviet Russia. He joins forces with Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, a former nobleman who has returned to his hometown to find a cache of missing jewels which were hidden in some chairs that have been appropriated by the Soviet authorities. The search for the bejeweled chairs takes these unlikely heroes from the provinces to Moscow to the wilds of Soviet Georgia and the Trans-caucasus mountains; on their quest they encounter a wide variety of characters: from opportunistic Soviet bureaucrats to aging survivors of the prerevolutionary propertied classes, each one more selfish, venal, and ineffective than the one before. • The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder Amazon US / Kobo Spoiler: "On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." With this celebrated sentence Thornton Wilder begins The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction and a novel read throughout the world. By chance, a monk witnesses the tragedy. Brother Juniper then embarks on a quest to prove that it was divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who perished in the tragedy. His search leads to his own death -- and to the author's timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition. • Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub / Kindle Spoiler: No description provided. • Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe No links provided. Spoiler: No summation provided. • The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub / Kindle / Kindle (Books 1 & 2) │ Amazon Spoiler: Contains these stories: MOWGLI'S BROTHERS KAA'S HUNTING TIGER! TIGER! THE WHITE SEAL RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI TOOMAI OF THE ELEPHANTS HER MAJESTY'S SERVANTS PARADE-SONG OF THE CAMP ANIMALS • 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) Spoiler: Amazon blurb: With its rousing cry of "One for all, and all for one," Alexandre Dumas's thrilling adventure novel has captivated generations of readers since its initial publication in 1844. Action, intrigue, and romance abound in this swashbuckling epic, which traces a country lad's path to the French court of the early 1600s and the glorious fraternity of the king's men, the Musketeers.
[ 43 replies - poll! ]

Tue March 25 2014

Diesel ebooks shutting down?
04:44 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.
[ 68 replies ]

Sat March 22 2014

MobileRead Week in Review: 03/15 - 03/22
07:00 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

Thu March 20 2014

April 2014 Book Club Nominations
01:03 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 Spoiler: Dreiser's unsparing story of a country girl's rise to riches as the mistress of a wealthy man marked the beginning of the naturalist movement in America. Both its subject matter and Dreiser's objective, nonmoralizing approach made it highly controversial, and only a heavily edited version could be published in 1900. (2) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky No links provided. Spoiler: An Amazon blurb: Supreme masterpiece recounts in feverish, compelling tones the story of Raskolnikov, an impoverished student tormented by his own nihilism, and the struggle between good and evil. (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 Spoiler: From Wikipedia: The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine. The magazine's editors feared the story was indecent as submitted, so they censored roughly 500 words, without Wilde's knowledge, before publication. But even with that, the story was still greeted with outrage by British reviewers, some of whom suggested that Wilde should be prosecuted on moral grounds, leading Wilde to defend the novel aggressively in letters to the British press. Wilde later revised the story for book publication, making substantial alterations, deleting controversial passages, adding new chapters, and including an aphoristic Preface that has since become famous in its own right. The amended version was published by Ward Lock & Co in April 1891. Some scholars believe that Wilde would today have wanted us to read the version he originally submitted to Lippincott's. The novel tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Basil is impressed by Dorian's beauty and becomes infatuated with him, believing his beauty is responsible for a new mode in his art. Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil's, and becomes enthralled by Lord Henry's world view. Espousing a new hedonism, Lord Henry suggests the only things worth pursuing in life are beauty and fulfilment of the senses. Realizing that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian (whimsically) expresses a desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait Basil has painted would age rather than he. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, and when he subsequently pursues a life of debauchery, the portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, with each sin displayed as a disfigurement of his form, or through a sign of aging. The Picture of Dorian Gray is considered a work of classic Gothic fiction with a strong Faustian theme. (4) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum Patricia Clark Memorial Library: Oz Omnibus: BBeB/LRF (Illustrated) / ePub / Kindle / Kindle (Illustrated) Spoiler: We all know and love the movie, but as we all know "the book is always better than the movie". Let's find out if that is true and discuss together... (5) The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf and Eugine Petrov Amazon US Spoiler: Book Description (from Amazon.com): Publication Date: December 2, 2013 Ostap Bender is an unemployed con artist living by his wits in postrevolutionary Soviet Russia. He joins forces with Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, a former nobleman who has returned to his hometown to find a cache of missing jewels which were hidden in some chairs that have been appropriated by the Soviet authorities. The search for the bejeweled chairs takes these unlikely heroes from the provinces to Moscow to the wilds of Soviet Georgia and the Trans-caucasus mountains; on their quest they encounter a wide variety of characters: from opportunistic Soviet bureaucrats to aging survivors of the prerevolutionary propertied classes, each one more selfish, venal, and ineffective than the one before. (6) The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder Amazon US / Kobo Spoiler: "On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." With this celebrated sentence Thornton Wilder begins The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction and a novel read throughout the world. By chance, a monk witnesses the tragedy. Brother Juniper then embarks on a quest to prove that it was divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who perished in the tragedy. His search leads to his own death -- and to the author's timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition. (7) Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub / Kindle Spoiler: No description provided. (8) Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe No links provided. Spoiler: No summation provided. (9) The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub / Kindle / Kindle (Books 1 & 2) │ Amazon Spoiler: Contains these stories: MOWGLI'S BROTHERS KAA'S HUNTING TIGER! TIGER! THE WHITE SEAL RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI TOOMAI OF THE ELEPHANTS HER MAJESTY'S SERVANTS PARADE-SONG OF THE CAMP ANIMALS (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) Spoiler: Amazon blurb: With its rousing cry of "One for all, and all for one," Alexandre Dumas's thrilling adventure novel has captivated generations of readers since its initial publication in 1844. Action, intrigue, and romance abound in this swashbuckling epic, which traces a country lad's path to the French court of the early 1600s and the glorious fraternity of the king's men, the Musketeers. The nominations are now closed.
[ 65 replies ]

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