11:19 AM by pdurrant in E-Book General | News

Thanks to The Digital Reader for more news on an interesting new reflective LCD display. While it clearly is initially aimed at watches and similar devices, it can scale to ereader sized displays.

At 3mW to 4mW for a 6" display, a 3.7V, 1.9Ah battery like the one in a Kindle could power the display for 70 days or so. Of course, that's just the display, power is needed for the computer part of an ereader too, but it shows that the display is low power enough to be used in an ereader.

The displays going into production have a reflectance of 32% and a contrast ratio of 20:1

In comparison, eInk's Carta display has a reflectance of 44%, but a contrast ratio of only 15:1.

Japan Display claim 40% reflectance for their large screen prototype.

I really hope some ereader manufacturer produces a device with this display.

11:01 AM by Loosheesh in E-Book General | News

Today I got an email from eChristian.com about their site closing down

eChristian.com Store Closing

eChristian.com's final active date will be January 31, 2014.

We are saddened to inform you that the eChristian.com website is scheduled to end on January 31, 2014. This has been a difficult decision because we truly value and appreciate our customers, publishers, and partners. We are thankful for the many kind words and comments for eChristian, but the predatory pricing of industry giants and the publisher stipulated DRM requirements were two obstacles we could not overcome and don't see any positive changes on the horizon. As a result, continued investment in the platform, support, and marketing is unwise.

Have you made purchases from us?

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this will cause and will do our best to help each customer of eChristian get their content off our servers before the site is taken offline.

Please download and authorize* your purchased content from your My Library on eChristian before January 31, 2014 as accounts and downloads will no longer be accessible as of 12:01am PT on February 1, 2014.

*Authorizing your DRMed eBook content will ensure that it is available on that device after the eChristian servers are taken offline. Note that no authorization is needed for downloaded audiobook, video, or DRM free eBook content.

Future audiobook purchases.

Although the eChristian site is being permanently decommissioned, our sister site christianaudio.com is still active and will continue to offer quality, Christian audiobook downloads at great prices!

Contact us with questions.

Feel free to reply to this email or send a note to support@echristian.com if you have additional questions or need assistance in downloading your digital content from eChristian.

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

Previously at MobileRead:

E-Book General - News

• Dutch e-book sales rose by more than 60% in 2013
• Germany's Weltbild insolvency
• E-Reading Rises as Device Ownership Jumps

04:14 AM by hughes in E-Book General | News

New (2014 Jan 16) Pew survey results on reading habits:

Most American adults read a print book in the past year, even as e-reading continues to grow

05:25 AM by fjtorres in E-Book General | News

From Publishers Weekly:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...nsolvency.html

In the long term, the showdown seemed hardly avoidable, as the owner’s low key commitment had to clash with the plan of the management, to radically renew Weltbild over a period of three years, until 2016, by closing many of its 300 bricks-and-mortar outlets, and instead transform it into Germany’s leading domestic Internet platform for books and media.

Led by CEO Carel Halff, Weltbild had become the number two online book retailer in Germany, behind Amazon, while multiplying its various digital initiatives. Focusing on a strategy defined by digital and Internet sales, Halff was betting early on e-books, introducing devices and promoting an expanding catalogue of titles – which included loads of self-published as well as erotic titles, which again drew harsh criticism from the Church. In 2013, Weltbild became a driving force in the Tolino alliance, a consortium formed around a line of e-readers and tablets, which included not only Deutsche Telekom as a technology partner, but also Thalia as the largest chain book store and a direct competitor. In November, Weltbild also announced plans to extend its share in buecher.de, an online bookselling platform co-owned by the Holtzbrinck group (which seemed to be ready to divest its stake) and Axel Springer.

All these simultaneous initiatives may have overburdened the complex ownership structure, as it required a significant financial commitment in a long term plan. When holiday sales stayed much below expectations, and the required investment skyrocketed from € 60 million ($ 82 million) to an estimated € 160 million ($ 220 million), the owners decided to pull the plug.

More at the source, including the (by now) the obligatory Amazon reference even though Germany is a fixed price market.

They're calling it a "Borders incident" but it sounds more like a B&N scenario given their involvement in Tolino.

06:20 AM by Katsunami in E-Book General | News

Original Article: Nederlandse e-bookverkoop stijgt met ruim 60 procent in 2013

Translation:

In 2013, 60% more e-books were sold as compared to the year before. In total 1.95 million e-books were sold in 2013, compared to 1.2 million in 2012. Boekblad reported that at this moment, e-books are generating about 3.2% of all revenue.

According to Mathijs Suidman, manager Digital Media of Centraal Boekhuis, which distributes almost all Dutch books, the figure is so low because e-books cost less on average. "If you'd look to the number of books sold, they'd make up about 4.6% of the A book market."

Still, the growth is disappointing to him. "I expected that this amount would grow faster - partly because of my expectation that libraries would have started to loan e-books already, beginning last October," says Suidman.

It looks like the market share of e-books is not rising very fast. Figures published earlier by NUTech showed that 4.1% of book revenue was generated by e-books in May 2013.

More than one in five books that are ordered online is digital, says Suidman. The number of e-books on offer rose from 19.230 titles to 28.319. Centraal Boekhuis offers over 80.000 different physical books.

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

Just in case you've missed anything, here is the list of our frontpage news this week.

E-Book General - News

• Bookish sold to Zola books
• "Barnes & Noble holiday sales drop on Nook slump"

E-Book Readers - Apple Devices

• Kindle for iOS 4.1 released

06:50 AM by John F in E-Book General | News

"Nook segment sales in the nine weeks ended Dec. 28 fell 61%, including a 67% slump in device and accessories sales. Digital content sales were down 27%."

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bar...%20MarketPulse)