Morning Coffee – 1 July 2016

Here are six stories to read this morning. Facebook does the right thing, looks after its own customers (Talking New Media) How to Write a History of Writing Software (The Atlantic) I Was One of the Interns Reading Your Lit Journal Submissions (BookRiot) Oversized zine for XXL sights of Portland...

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from The Digital Reader

Nook Press is Spamming Authors With Payment Emails

When Barnes & Noble announced its pointless in-store Nook Press option earlier this week, I questioned whether any authors still used Nook Press. As I have learned today, the answer is yes, and Nook Press is doing its best to make sure those authors don't forget that fact. A bunch of authors...

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from The Digital Reader

Amazon Pulls Content From Inspire Teacher Site Over Copyright Issues

Amazon Inspire was designed to let teachers share curricula, lesson plans, and textbooks they created, but it seems some teachers have failed to grasp the idea that one shouldn't submit others' work as one's own. The NYTimes reports that Amazon has already had to pull content from the site: One day...

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from The Digital Reader

69 Euro Tolino Page to Compete With the Basic Kindle

For the past three years the German ereader maker Tolino has been competing with Amazon's Kindle by offering mobile apps, selling ebooks, and supporting one or more mid-market ereaders.  Today Tolino went after the budget ereader market. The Tolino Page is a 69 euro ereader with limited storage and...

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from The Digital Reader

Morning Coffee – 30 June 2016

Here are six stories to read this morning. Book Length, Cliffhangers, and the Economics of Paper Publishing (haikujaguar) Facebook adjusts News Feed to favor friends and family over publishers (The Verge) Got extra time in a self-driving car? Why not read? (Teleread) There Are Ways to Consume a...

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from The Digital Reader

Amazon Finally Launches the Fire Phone We Always Expected, Only it’s Not Called That

In the run up to the release of the Fire Phone in 2014, everyone was expecting to launch an unlocked budget smartphone which ran Amazon's version of Android, came bundled with its apps, and was sold cheap so that Amazon could use it to sell you stuff. That never happened. Instead we got a $600 Fire...

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from The Digital Reader

JetBlue Wasted Tens of Thousands of Dollars When it Installed Book Vending Machines in Detroit

Remember last summer when JetBlue got a lot of press for installing book vending machines in Washington DC's poorest neighborhoods? They've just installed more book vending machines in a reading desert, this time in Detroit. From the press release: JetBlue’s award-winning Soar with Reading program...

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from The Digital Reader

Joosr is an App Which Turns Books into 15-Minute Reads – What, Another One?

The Guardian has the tale of yet another startup which is trying to break into the condensed books market: Is this reading or “reading”? An app called Joosr, which aims to help users read a book in 20 minutes, has just been launched in the UK. Initially, this horrified me. I ranted that we had lost...

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from The Digital Reader

Robots & Computers Copyright is Not Such a Dumb Idea, and It’s Also Not What the EU Proposed

As government bodies are wont to do, the European Parliament has recently released a draft report, one which looks at how AI, bots,  and other new tech might require new laws. Unless you are really into following the nitty-gritty details about Google's self-driving cars and the potential legal...

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from The Digital Reader

B&N’s New In-Store POD, Event Programs Options for Indie Authors is Too Little, Too Late

When Barnes & Noble expanded its publishing platform Nook Press in 2014 and added a POD service, they forgot to include one key component. You could use Nook Press to print books, but you could not get them into B&N stores (for that you would need a competing POD service like Createspace or...

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from The Digital Reader

Amazon’s New “Page Flip” Feature for Kindle is like a Virtual Forefinger in an eBook

The ability to hold your place with a forefinger or bookmark while quickly flipping around the pages of a book is one of the few functional advantages paper books have over ebooks - or rather, it was. On Tuesday Amazon introduced a new navigation feature for Kindle platform called Page Flip. With...

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from The Digital Reader

Morning Coffee – 28 June 2016

Here are five stories to read this morning. I Lost $6,500 on My Last Book Launch: Details, final tally, lessons learned (TheRenegadeWriter) No ‘right to compensation’ for content, as the courts continually remind European publishers (Talking New Media) Purchased by accident? Cancel Order (Trout...

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from The Digital Reader

Deutsche Bahn Debuts Free Streaming Audiobook Library on ICE Trains

If you're traveling through Germany this summer (and also know German) then you might want to check out Deutsche Bahn's newest bonus for its passengers. Earlier this month the railway added newspapers, mobile games, radio plays and audiobooks to ICE Portal, its in-train entertainment system....

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from The Digital Reader

AAP Reports Publisher Book, eBook Sales Down in January 2016

Bookstore retail sales may have been up in January 2016 and for the previous calendar year, but you wouldn't be able to tell that from the AAP's January revenue stats. The Association of American Publishers announced on Monday that total revenues for its member publishers had dropped in January...

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from The Digital Reader

Infographic: 128 Words to Use in Place of the Word Very

Very is a very useful word, but authors very often overuse the adverb to the point that it has very little impact. The following very useful infographic help you build a very large vocabulary  by very quickly giving you new options for replacing the word very, as well as the word it is adverbing....

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from The Digital Reader

Repost: There’s No Need to Change Amazon’s Kindle eBook Return Policy

There's a post circulating this week about readers abusing Amazon's return policy in the Kindle Store. Writing over at her Trout Nation blog, Jenny Trout, recounts: Amazon will refund readers for an e-book purchase within seven days, regardless of how much content has been read. At first glance,...

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from The Digital Reader

German Web Publishers Appeal Decision in Market Power Case Against Google

German news publishers have announced the Nth round of their ongoing campaign to force Google to pay for giving them free advertising. The German publishers have appealed a Berlin court's rejection of a case in which they accused Google of abusing its market power by refusing to pay them for...

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from The Digital Reader

Morning Coffee – 27 June 2016

Here are six stories to read this morning. The battle to define the future of the book in the digital world (First Monday) Business Musings: The Midlist Rules! (Kristine Kathryn Rusch) Dutch court says BREIN should get e-book uploaders' names (The Register) Lois McMaster Bujold Answers Three...

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from The Digital Reader

B&N Claims 9% of eBook Market, Has 2M Nook Users, Pins Future on Vinyl, and Other Highlights from Investor Phone Call

On Wednesday Barnes & Noble released its annual financial report. The news was all around bad, but that didn't stop B&N from trying to spin the news in their investor phone call. I've just finished reading the transcript of said call (found on Seeking Alpha).  B&N blew an epic amount of...

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from The Digital Reader

Pop-Up Book Lets You Animate Its Illustrations With A Vintage Technique (video)

Here's a book which combines aspects of pop-up books and interactive ebook apps. Milan-based filmmaker Virgilio Villoresi has collaborated with illustrator Virginia Mori to create a paper book which uses vintage pre-cinema animation techniques to tell a story. The book is called Vento, and if you...

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from The Digital Reader

Star Trek: Renegades to Continue Production in Defiance of Paramount’s Onerous Restrictions

When Paramount announced its new "guidelines" for Star trek fan productions earlier this week, some feared that the restrictions would have a chilling effect on fan films. The film studio's rules limited the length of a fan film to 30 minutes, forbid any ex-Star Trek people from participating,...

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Paul Biba’s eBook, eLibrary and ePublishing news compilation for week ending Saturday, June 25

Editor's Note: The following is a compilation of tweets from @PaulKBiba, the former editor of Teleread. Taiwan Literature in Translation (National Museum of Taiwan Literature) Sudan: A Norwegian University Plans to Digitize Sudanese Radio and TV Archive (Infodocket) New App, Litsy, Aims To Be the...

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from The Digital Reader

Typography Aficionados Still Not Happy With Kindle Fonts

Typography snobs have never been happy with ebooks. Even though ebooks in their modern incarnation are less than two decades old, the snobs still object to the fact that the current ebook tech can't equal the beauty of a paper book. Never mind that a paper book draws on a couple thousand years...

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from The Digital Reader

B&N Ed Acquires Promoversity so it Can Sell More Branded Merch.

As I am sure you could guess, college bookstores make a lot of money off of gear carrying a college's logo or sports team. With their latest acquisition, B&N Education is hoping to cash in on that market. B&N Ed announced on Thursday that it had bought Promoversity, "a custom merchandise...

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from The Digital Reader

Kobo Aura One eReader to Feature 7.8″ Screen (or Is It Six Inch?)

Kobo has new FCC filings this week which are bound to set the ebook community buzzing. Most of the useful  details are concealed, but according to one set of paperwork, the Kobo Aura One (model bn709) was made by Netronix. It's a device with a 7.8" screen, Wifi, and a 1.2 Ah battery. There's a...

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from The Digital Reader

Sony DPT-S1 Writing Slate Now on Sale for $699

Sony's 13" PDF reader has just gotten a little cheaper. Amazon and B&H Photo are now carrying the DPT-S1 Writing Slate for $699, or $100 off the regular price. That's just over half what the DPT-S1 cost when it was released in Japan in late 2013. That's a significant discount from the original...

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from The Digital Reader

German Court Hands Axel Springer Partial Victory in Ad-Blocking Case

Axel Springer has been fighting a one-publisher legal battle in Germany against ad-blockers, and it has lost every time - until today. Reuters reports that an appeals court in Germany gave Springer a small victory on Friday: A German court on Friday handed publisher Axel Springer a material win in...

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from The Digital Reader

Morning Coffee – 24 June 2016

Here are seven stories to read this morning. 11 Reasons To Switch To An E-Reader Even If You're Skeptical (Bustle) 7 Reasons I'll Never Choose An E-Reader Over A Physical Book (Bustle) Authors Respond to Disinvites from Schools (PW) Contagion, poison, trigger: books have always been dangerous (Aeon...

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from The Digital Reader

How to Blind Yourself: the Smartphone Edition

Do you know how your mom told you not to stare at a screen while sitting in a darkened room? Well, two smartphone owners have found an even worse way to misuse their mobile devices. The Guardian has a report on an academic paper which details the experiences of two women who managed to blind...

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from The Digital Reader

B&N to Open Four Restaurant/Bookstores, Including One in Loudon, VA

Remember that new B&N store I wrote about a couple weeks back? B&N wasn't talking at the time, but today they finally revealed what they were going to do with it. Barnes & Noble announced on Thursday that they were forming a new business unit, the Development & Restaurant Group....

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from The Digital Reader

Buy a Book From Packt Publishing, and They’ll Bill You for an Unwanted Subscription

Packt Publishing was at one time one of the better technical publishers. They sell their ebooks DRM-free at reasonable prices and used to come highly recommended. But after their latest stunt I do not think I'd buy books from them. Janie Clayton writes on her Red Queen Coder blog about a recent...

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from The Digital Reader

HarperCollins: The Skies Will Rain Blood if Australia Removes Its Book Import Restrictions

The Australian book publishing industry was out in force this week to lobby against the proposed changes to Australia's book import laws. Earlier this year the Productivity Commission released its draft proposal with recommendations for changes to Australia's IP laws, including the recommendation...

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Morning Coffee – 23 June 2016

Here are ten stories to read this morning. According to Amazon, which Canadian city loves to read more than any other? (National Post) How should reading be taught in schools? (The Conversation) The latest excuse for why ebook sales have gone down: digital fatigue (angelahighland.com) Let’s Get...

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from The Digital Reader

Whie Kindle Paperwhite Available Worldwide Starting Next Week

Remember the white Kindle Paperwhite Amazon launched in China and Japan back in April? Soon you'll have the chance to buy one. In addition to launching the new white basic Kindle today, Amazon has also announced that the white Kindle Paperwhite will be start shipping in the US and elsewhere in the...

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from The Digital Reader

B&N Reports Digital Revenues Down 27% for the Fiscal Year

Barnes & Noble has released its annual report for fiscal year 2016, and the news ranged from bad to terrible. The bad news was that revenues were down company wide 3.7% for the quarter and 3.1% for the year, to $877 million for the quarter and $4.16 billion for the year. Retail sales, which...

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from The Digital Reader

The Amazon Credit You Got Could Hurt Publishing, and Other Amusing Nonsense

Yesterday's news about the ebook antitrust settlement credits has not lead to the  flood of angry posts denouncing evil Amazon which we would have gotten last year. I've only found a single diatribe so far, but what we lack in quantity, the following piece makes up for in its entertainment value....

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from The Digital Reader

Amazon Launches Online Bookstores in India for Bengali, Gujarati Languages

The updated white Kindle isn't the only thing Amazon launched on Wednesday morning; it has also opened two additional language-specific bookstores in India. Amazon already supported bookstore sites for Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, and Kannada, and now it's adding Bengali and Gujarati to the...

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from The Digital Reader

The New Basic Kindle Has Twice the RAM, Bluetooth, Still Costs $79

Earlier this year a Kindle firmware update dropped hints about a new basic Kindle code named Woody, and today it finally launched. The new basic Kindle still costs $79 with ads, only now it comes with 512MB RAM, and is available in both black and white. (The white basic Kindle had previously been...

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from The Digital Reader

If Barnes & Noble Goes Out of Business, Would Anyone Care?

The New Republic is concerned that the death of B&N could have odd and unpleasant side effects on publishing.  While other retailers would take up the slack in terms of sales, they would not provide the early volume of orders that some publishers have come to rely upon: ... Even on the brink of...

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from The Digital Reader

Amazon is Sending Out Emails for eBook Settlement Credits Today

Amazon and other retailers are now informing their customers about the ebook settlement credits promised in yesterday's announcement. If you are due a credit, it should show up in your account as one or more discrete additions to your gift card balance. Any US consumer who bought an ebook between 1...

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from The Digital Reader

Digital Fatigue, or the New Industry Spin on eBook Sales

For the past three or so pundits and the mainstream media have pointed to sales figures from groups like the AAP and proclaimed that the ebook apocalypse had failed to occur and that ebooks weren't going to replace print. Over the past year that recurring story has been recognized as a trope, and a...

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from The Digital Reader

Morning Coffee – 21 June 2016

Here are six stories to read this morning. Are you a ‘reader’ when listening to an audiobook? Yes, of course. (No Shelf Required) Engage your child in reading and track their progress with Starwords (TNW) Op-ed: What publishers should do about ad blocking now - Digiday http://ebookne.ws/28L0bMr Why...

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from The Digital Reader

Apple eBook Refunds Are Coming on 21 June, Attorneys Say

Remember that $400 million ebook settlement that Apple was on the hook for after they lost their Supreme Court Appeal in March? It looks like it is finally going to arrive. Hagens Berman, the law firm which launched a consumer class-action lawsuit against Apple and five publishers, announced on...

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from The Digital Reader

Infographic: The Most Poetic Cities in the (Mostly English-Speaking) World

The poetry site My Poetic Side has combed their database and come up with a list of what they are calling the ten most poetic cities in the world. The cities are ranked based on the number of poets who were born, died, or educated in a city. Aside from Paris, all of the cities on this list are...

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from The Digital Reader

Researchers Reveal Booxtream’s Digital Watermark DRM

The general details about Booxtream's digital watermark DRM have been known since someone deconstructed a Harry Potter ebook from Pottermore in 2012, but have you ever wondered about the specific technical details? Thanks to an anonymous hacker going by the name of Paigey the Book Pirate, now we...

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Morning Coffee – 20 June 2016

Here are eight stories to read this morning. 15 Words For Gossips and Chatterboxes (Mental Floss) 5 Words You Use All the Time That Were Once Totally Unacceptable (TIME) Client vs. Designer: Solving Creative Disputes (Michael Carusi) Copyright-free material edging out Canadian educational texts...

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If Railroads Predict the Death of the Open Web, What Do They Say About eBooks?

One of the links in tomorrow's morning coffee post raises troubling questions about the future of the ebook market. Tech.co points us to an article in The Atlantic where Ev Williams, co-founder of Blogger, Twitter, and Medium, is interviewed  about the challenges an open internet faces. Two...

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from The Digital Reader

Why Amazon Doesn’t Add ePub Support to the Kindle

My colleague with the confusingly named blog pondered this morning on whether Amazon should add support for Epub on the Kindle platform. I've wondering about that point for the past few years (in fact, I asked this very same question back in 2011), so I'd like to answer his question: Fire tablets...

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from The Digital Reader

How Kobo Overcame Great Odds & Showed Maverick Thinking, Or, How to Masturbate in Public

Kobo published a self-congratulatory post on Medium this week which was sorely lacking in any achievements worth celebrating. They've posted the text of the talk  Rakuten Kobo CEO Michael Tamblyn gave at The Economist’s Canada Summit where he lauded Kobo's accomplishments. While they may have...

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from The Digital Reader

Paul Biba’s eBook, eLibrary and ePublishing news compilation for week ending Saturday, June 18

Editor's Note: The following is a compilation of tweets from @PaulKBiba, the former editor of Teleread. Research on literacy improvements from using ebooks and ereaders (@worldreaders) How the iPad frees musicians from sheet music while connecting them to history (iMore) How to Use BookBub to Boost...

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from The Digital Reader

Amazon Freetime Now Causing Registration Issues on Kids Fire Tablets

If your Kids Fire tablet suddenly de-registered itself or lost your data, you're not alone, and it's not your fault. As Pocketables initially reported, and eBook Evangelist explained, some Kids Fire tablet owners are finding that their tablets have spontaneously lost registration info, as well as...

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from The Digital Reader

Innocent Authors Are Getting Burned in Amazon’s Fight Against KU Bot Farms

Remember earlier this year when authors were being punished for putting a table of contents at the end of their ebooks? As David Gaughran inferred and Amazon confirmed, those authors were getting caught up in one of Amazon's fights against Kindle Unlimited scammers who were tricking readers into...

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from The Digital Reader

Paramount Says Star Trek Axanar Copyright Lawsuit Is Not Over

Around this time last month news stories circulated with the claim that the copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Paramount against the fan film Axanar was about to be settled. Alas, that hasn't happened. Hollywood Reporter has the scoop on this ongoing case, and they report that the latest...

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from The Digital Reader

The 3-Day Lycos Server Outage Reminds Us of the Need for Backups

Here's a scary reminder that the cloud is not nearly as stable as we would like, and of the need for multiple backups. This hasn't made the tech news blogosphere yet, but several sources have told me (and numerous complaints on FB and twitter confirm) that the web services company Lycos is...

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Morning Coffee – 17 June 2016

Here are five stories to read this morning. Amazon and Affiliate Accounts (The Wayfinder - Hugh C. Howey) Appeals Court Gives Big Loss To Record Labels In Their Quixotic Lawsuit Against Vimeo For Lipdubs (Techdirt) Business Musings: Thugs, Lawyers, and Writers (Contracts/Dealbreakers) (Kristine...

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Libraries Should be Able to Lend eBooks, Says EU Advocate General

The EU is one step closer to adopting a universal legal policy enabling libraries to lend ebooks. Earlier today Advocate General Maciej Szpunar published a nonbinding advisory opinion which said that libraries should be able to lend ebooks just like they do paper books. From Ars Technica: A 2006 EU...

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from The Digital Reader

Did Amazon Drop the eBook Affiliates Because They were No Longer Needed, or to Improve the User Experience?

When I broke the news yesterday that Amazon had dropped ebook discovery sites like eReaderIQ from its affiliate program, I argued that Amazon had decided to end its relationship with sites it thought it no longer needed. Hugh Howey has a different take. Writing over on his blog, Howey argues that...

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from The Digital Reader

Kindle Unlimited Funding Jumps in May 2016 as the Payout Takes a Slight Dip

Amazon announced on Wednesday that the funding pool for Kindle Unlimited rose in May 2016, to $15.3 million. That represents an increase of $400k from April 2016, and a new peak for the funding pool. At the same time, the per-page royalty dipped last month. In the US and much of Europe it dropped...

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from The Digital Reader

Amazon to Open Third Amazon Books in Portland

Amazon has opened or announced over a dozen unstore pickup locations in the past 18 months, but they've only announced two bookstores. Now we can report that a third bookstore is in the works, this time near Portland, Oregon. Fortune has the scoop that Amazon's third bookstore will be located in...

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Morning Coffee – 16 May 2016

Here are eleven stories to read this morning. #Bookface and #Corpuslibris: Be One With Book Cover (BookRiot) Can ebooks compare to the tactile pleasure of a book and the cozy, welcoming space of a library? (National Post) ComicBlitz Expands to the Web (Graphic Policy) Facebook Is Holding Your...

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from The Digital Reader

Amazon Lowers the Boom on Discount eBook Sites

When Amazon-owned Goodreads launched its discount ebook service last month, I wondered whether Amazon would find reasons to shut down its competition. The first to go was Fussy Librarian, which went under the axe the week before Goodreads announced. At the time it looked like  that was an isolated...

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from The Digital Reader

Facebook Plans to De-Emphasize Text Updates Over the Next Five Years

There's a story going around this week that "Facebook is predicting the end of the written word", but in reality that claim is little more than clickbait. Yesterday Quartz reported that: Facebook is predicting the end of the written word on its platform. In five years time Facebook “will be...

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from The Digital Reader

Apple Music Exec and Nine Inch Nails Frontman: “YouTube is Built on Stolen Content’”

There's an article up on Billboard where Trent Reznor says that Youtube is built on stolen content. Billboard interviewed him on Monday at WWDC, alongside Eddy Cue, Jimmy Iovine, and Robert Kondrk, and when Reznor was asked about Youtube he said: Personally, I find YouTube’s business to be very...

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from The Digital Reader

eBooks Make Up 7% of Dutch Book Sales, Most of Which Occur in Physical Bookstores

CB Logistics has released its quarterly infographic on the state of the Dutch book market and it shows that print books continue to dominate the market, with most being sold in physical bookstores. More than 80% of the book sales tracked by CB Logistics were made in brick and mortar stores; in...

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from The Digital Reader

Reports of the End of the Full Stop Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Late last week the NY Times foretold the death of the lowly period, but now it appears that the paper was going for hype over substance. David Crystal, the academic cited in the NYTimes article as the source of reports of the period's demise, refuted the NYTimes' story on Saturday. Writing on his...

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from The Digital Reader

Amazon Launches Tumblog: The Story (by Kindle)

Between Omnivoracious and Audible Range, Amazon has no shortage of literary blogs.  Now the retailer has launched a new blog, this time on Tumblr. Launched in early March, The Story (by Kindle) was created for those who love to read. Amazon describes it as "a publication for the Kindle community...

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from The Digital Reader

Kindle Update v5.8.1 Restores Reading Progress Dots, Adds New Sharing Options

Amazon has released a new firmware update today for its Kindle ereaders. The update is available for download from the Amazon website and adds the following features to the Voyage, Ppaerwhite, and basic Kindle: Reading Progress Dots: We listened to feedback from our customers and brought reading...

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Penguin Revives Decades-Old Software for 30th Anniversary Edition of “The Blind Watchmaker”

Even in 2016, publishers and authors are still struggling when it comes to re-releasing decades-old books, but Penguin had a unique problem when it set out to publish a 30th anniversary edition of Richard Dawkin's The Blind Watchmaker. The Bookseller reports that Penguin decided to revive four...

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Amazon puts Fire Tablets, Kindles eReaders on Sale for Father’s Day

Amazon is holding another sale this week  in honor of its desire to sell more gadgets. They have put the Fire and Kindle on sale in both the US and UK. They haven't put the Voyage or the Oasis on sale in the US, although the Voyage is on sale in the UK (£35 off).  The US deals include $10 off the...

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Morning Coffee – 14 June 2016

Here are seven stories to read this morning. 9 Awesome Websites to Find and Download Chinese E-books (Fluentu) Eight is Not Enough: Second Circuit Adopts Eleven Factor Nominative Fair Use Test  (Trademark and Copyright Law) Finding the Public Domain Toolkit: Identifying Items Not Subject to...

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Apple Launched iBooks Editions, And No One Noticed

Aside from the news that the iOS Ten beta would let you remove Apple's spam apps including iBooks, there wasn't much in the way of ebook news in today's WWDC keynote. There was, however, one small bit of ebook news which Apple announced last last week. On Thursday Apple debuted iBooks Editions. Not...

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Did Morocco Really Ban Sharing Newspapers in Public? Not Exactly

There's a story going around this week, first reported in The Telegraph and then picked up by Techdirt, that Morocco had banned the sharing of newspapers in public. According to the latest spin, Morocoo's Communication Ministry had banned "people in cafes sharing newspapers with others". That is a...

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Boersenverein: German eBook Sales up 4.7% in 2015

Boersenverein has announced its annual report on the state of local German book industry.  The complete report won't be up for sale until 4 August, but a few details were released in anticipation of the annual industry conference. Total sales of books and journals were down 1.4%, to €9.2 billion....

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Selling Hardbacks for a Suggested Retail of $10 – a Fluke, or Sanity Breaking Out in Publishing?

When I was visiting the Barnes & Noble store in Fredericksburg yesterday,I came across a surprising sight. Mixed in with the many tables of remaindered, discounted, and otherwise reduced price books was one tablet full of "bargain-priced" history and mythology books. The books were priced...

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Infographic: How to Remove the Sticker from a New Book

No one likes it when stickers mar the cover of a book in our libraries. They're ugly, and in the case of textbooks they can actually lower the resale value. Fortunately, they are also removable. Rock Paper Cynic has created the following infographic which explains how to remove a sticker without...

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Morning Coffee – 13 June 2016

Here are six stories to read this morning. BookLife Prize in Fiction (Writer Beware) Grammatical malpractice (Baltimore Sun) Hello! You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About The First Amendment. (Popehat) New York Times Says Fair Use Of 300 Words Will Run You About $1800 (Techdirt)...

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Inside the B&N Pilot Store in Fredericksburg, VA

This week's news about B&N's new store in Ashburn, VA, reminded me that Barnes & Noble recently opened Barnes & Noble store in Fredericksburg, VA. Opened in late 2012, the Fredericksburg store was one of a handful of B&N stores which featured a smaller footprint and a large,...

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Amazon is Preparing to Launch Streaming Music Service: Sources

In 2011 Amazon launched Kindle Owner's Lending Library, an Amazon Prime benefit, and later the retailer expanded it into Kindle Unlimited. Now it looks like Amazon is about to do the same with Amazon Prime Music, which had originally launched in 2014. Amazon is preparing to launch a standalone...

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Amazon Will Give You a Free Hardback Book With the Purchase of a Kindle Paperwhite

Amazon is running a new bundle offer right now, but you're going to have to get lucky to take advantage of it. The retailer is now offering a free paperback or hardback book with the purchase of a $119 Kindle Paperwhite (the other models, including ones without ads, are not included in this offer)....

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Paul Biba’s eBook, eLibrary and ePublishing news compilation for week ending Saturday, June 11

Editor's Note: The following is a compilation of tweets from @PaulKBiba, the former editor of Teleread. Hummingbird Digital Media Amasses Over 3,000 Publishers (DBW) Author Earning Posts New Report on Big Five Ebook Pricing (DBW) 8 Ebook Discovery Services Compared (Self-Publishing Advice)...

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Could the Period Come to a Full Stop?

The NY Times has put forth the argument that the lowly period is going away. They published an interview of David Crystal yesterday where he explained that when it comes to instant messaging, the period is now more notable for its presence than its absence. The period — the full-stop signal we all...

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Aldi Rebrands a Budget Onyx eReader in Belgium – 79 Euros

The European branches of Aldi have been slapping the Aldi brand on other company's ereaders since 2010. Last year it was an unidentified model from an unknown Chinese company, but this year Aldi is going upscale. Aldi Belgium is now listing an unnamed 6" ereader for 79 euros. It's going to be in...

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JA Konrath Releases Trio of Adult Coloring Books

Trad pub may have been the first to cash in on the recent adult coloring book craze, but now indie authors are joining the fun. Earlier this week author Joe Konrath published a trio of coloring books. The books, which can be found on Amazon in both Kindle and POD formats, and are 100 pages long. I...

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On the True Costs of Bargain Books, Or Guilting Readers Because Authors Signed Bad Contracts

James Mayhew has taken up the cause of trying to guilt, harangue, or otherwise convince readers to overpay for books from legacy publishers. About a month ago (I just now found it) Mayhew published a post where he argues that fans should not buy bargain price books because an author's royalties are...

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If Samsung’s Releasing a Foldable Smartphone, Why Haven’t They Confirmed the Rumor? (video)

Samsung is getting a lot of buzz this week on the rumor that they will announce collapsable smartphone and tablet at Mobile World Congress next spring, but I wonder just how seriously we should take this report. Bloomberg sparked the frenzy when they reported on Monday that Samsung's Project Valley...

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Amazon to Open Pickup Location Near Texas Tech U.; B&N to Open New Store in Ashburn, VA

Amazon's physical empire continues to grow, and B&N continues to experiment with new stores. Amazon put out a press release on Thursday announcing that they're opening another pickup location in Lubbock, Texas, near Texas Tech University. Opening in Fall 2016, this approximately...

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PwC: Now That They Exceed Print Sales, eBooks Sales Will Continue to Grow Slowly

After having fumbled ebook sales predictions for three years running by declaring that ebook sales would exceed print sales in 2016, er 2017, er 2018, PricewaterhouseCoopers is now claiming that the book publishing industry revenues will remain relatively flat for the next several years as ebook...

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Does the World Need a Paid Alternative to Little Free Libraries?

Individually, Little Free Libraries are small containers in public spaces where the public can borrow, exchange, or leave used books. Collectively, they're a movement to build local reading communities through sharing books, with hundreds of volunteer supporters around the world. But now someone...

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Morning Coffee – 9 June 2016

Here are eight stories to read this morning. The 1891 Novel Eerily Relevant to Today's Writing World (BookRiot) Europeans: you can save the right to take pictures in public! (Boing Boing) DPLAfest 2016: Authorship in the Digital Age Webcast (Library of Congress) Imagine If Ebooks Came First...

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Amazon Now Bundling a $50 Fire Tablet With a Comcast Subscription

Amazon is running a special right now to promote their new Cable store. Sign a new contract with Comcast, and Amazon will send you a Fire tablet. The deal is only good for the next week, and you have to be a customer for a month and a half before you'll get the tablet, but this is not a bad deal if...

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On DRM Being the Only Way to Guarantee Revenue, and Other Nonsense

Even the most ardent critic of DRM will admit that it has its uses. DRM may have a deleterious effect on consumers, but public libraries wouldn't be able to lend ebooks without DRM, nor could companies control their proprietary info. But what you won't hear a DRM critic say, or even a DRM advocate,...

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Morning Coffee – 8 June 2016

Here are ten stories to read this morning. Are Libraries the New Bookstores? (Writers Unboxed) Copyright Office Opens Inquiry on Digital Rights for Libraries (Copyright and Technology) eBook Formatting in Word: You Can Do This (Indies Unlimited) Hacker Lexicon: What Is the Digital Millennium...

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Beware Summaries/Reviews Masquerading as Kindle eBooks

The Kindle Store, at one point or another, has been home to just about every type of spam from bundled Wikipedia articles to computer-generated nonsense to recycled stale AP articles. Now it has become infested with a new type of spam. Author Robert Swartwood has tipped me to the existence of an...

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Literary Hub’s “Book Marks” Wants to be the Next “Rotten Tomatoes” of Book Reviews

Literary Hub announced on Tuesday that it's launching a book review aggregation service called Book Marks. It's more or less Rotten Tomatoes clone, only for books. Book Marks aggregates reviews from more than 70 sources (newspapers, magazines, and websites) and averages them into a letter grade....

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Tolino to Cut Royalties on Cheap eBooks to 40%

Germany's leading ebook retail consortium announced on Monday that it is no longer going to pay a 70% royalty on all self-published ebooks. e-Book-News.de, BuchReport, and Boersenblatt report that starting on 1 July, Tolino will drop the payout for ebooks costing less than three euros. eBooks...

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On Piracy, Freeloading, and Glass Houses

Over the past few days the subject of piracy and reader entitlement has reared its ugly head. It seems one person posted a FB status update, asking for recommendations for pirate sites, and all hell broke loose. That status update is either no longer public (or no one is willing to link to it) but...

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Infographic: Working Titles of Famous Novels

Have you ever heard of Margaret Mitchell’s acclaimed novel Tomorrow is Another Day? How about Ayn Rand’s libertarian masterpiece ‘The Strike? Well, it wouldn’t be a surprise if you hadn’t as the author’s changed their minds about those titles settling on ones you’ll be much more familiar with: Gone...

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Morning Coffee – 7 June 2016

Here are six stories to read this morning. Authors Are Paying for Ads and Their Books Aren’t Being Seen (Indies Unlimited) Comic books buck trend as print and digital sales flourish (CNBC) I created Godwin's Law in 1990, but it wasn't a prediction - it was a warning (IBT) The Myth About Print...

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TV Room “Wallpapered” Top to Bottom in Books

Companies like Books by the Foot have long enabled conspicuous consumption by letting people buy instant libraries which match a color, topic, theme, or subject. Now Imgur user Deece27 has found a more destructive way to use books as part of his interior decoration. BoingBoing brings us the sad...

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Gvido Dual-Screen Sheet Music Reader Debuts in Cannes

Gvido is a sheet music reader based on a pair of 13.3" Mobius E-ink displays. it was announced on Friday, and according to the press release it was being shown off at a music industry conference in Cannes (said conference ended on Monday - today). Weighing in at 650 grams, the Gvido measures 48 cm...

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Guest Post: Parallel Importation and Australian Book Publishing: Here We Go Aagain

Editor's Note: The following guest post was originally written in late 2015 following recommendations that Australia drop its restrictions on book imports. That recommendation was not acted upon, which is why the Productivity Commission made the same recommendation again this year and why this post...

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Morning Coffee – 6 June 2016

Here are eleven stories to read this morning. Abolish the adverb? You seriously must be joking. (Slate) Brought to book: when publishers go to court (The Guardian) Could Publishers and Agents Agree on a Flat Royalty Rate? (PW) EU-Funded Study On The Cost Of Copyright Infringement Dismisses Key...

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Is Hardcover the new Vinyl?

There has been a growing divide, ever since the Kindle revolutionized the ebook market, between two types of book lovers. On the one side we have readers who rushed into ebooks because they saw the benefit of carrying a massive library in a few ounces, and on the other side we have book lovers who...

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Computer Vision Syndrome, or Why We Would All be Better Off With an E-ink Monitor

The NYTimes published an article last week which reminds us why an expensive toy like Dasung's E-ink monitor is less an indulgence than a necessity. The article delves into computer vision syndrome, a spectrum of physical symptoms caused by sitting and staring at your computer screen for unhealthy...

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Paul Biba’s eBook, eLibrary and ePublishing news compilation for week ending Saturday, June 4

Editor's Note: The following is a compilation of tweets from @PaulKBiba, the former editor of Teleread. An Editor’s View of Digital Publishing (Getty.edu) Asia's Potential Monsoon of Ebook Sales: Philip Tatham on ASEAN (PP) Why teenagers are so resistant to e-readers (The Guardian) New Survey Shows...

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Brazilian Publishers Report Negligible eBook Sales in 2015

Earlier this week I reported that that ebook downloads in Brazil far outnumbered sales, and now it looks like current sales data from Brazilian publishers are bearing that out. eBookNews.com.br has the scoop new data which shows that Brazilian publishers are selling a negligible amount of ebooks....

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Singapore Welcomes its First Book Vending Machines

The Singapore-based bookseller BooksActually has been selling books in their shop since 2005 as well as online, and now they're expanding into vending machines. Mothership.sg and ChannelNewsAsia report that BooksActually has installed its first book vending machine at the National Museum of...

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Morning Coffee – 3 June 2559

Here are xxx stories to read this morning. Amazon sues sellers for buying fake reviews (TechCrunch) At Code Conference, Jeff Bezos talks of many things (TeleRead) Copyright Office’s Notice and Staydown System Would Force Platforms to Censor the Web (Internet Archive Blogs) The Emoji Bible has...

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Amazon Kindle Fire HD 10 Refreshed With New Aluminum Shell Option, Suggesting It Won’t Be Replaced This Year

Amazon just added fuel to my speculation that it won't be updating their Fire tablet line this year. Earlier today Amazon quietly launched a new color option for the Fire HD 10, its largest Android tablet. In addition to black and white, the tablet is now available in a silver aluminum color...

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Nielsen: Trad Pub eBook Unit Sales Down in 2015

About three weeks back Nielsen teased BEA 2016 attendees with a few details from their annual report on the traditionally published US book market. On Tuesday they shared a few additional details in a blog post. They don't say much which is new, but I do want to call your attention to how Nielsen...

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May 2016 Author Earnings Report Says Indie Authors Are Making All the Money

Yesterday Russel Smith followed up his uninformed ramblings about ebook sales stats with a piece that claimed that indie authors were no worse off financially than traditionally published authors. It looks like that is another swing and a miss for Smith, because the latest Author Earnings Report...

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Hands-On with the Onyx Boox Kepler Pro Android eReader (videos)

First unveiled in late April, the Boox Kepler Pro is Onyx's answer to the Kindle Paperwhite. It features a flush-mounted 300 ppi screen  similar to the Kindle Oasis and Kindle Voyage, page turn buttons positioned along its edges, and runs Android 4.0 on a 1GHz CPU with 1GB RAM. Up until the past...

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E-ink and Canatu Announce a 6.3″ Flexible Touch E-ink Display for Wearables

Polyera thrilled geeks everywhere when they first revealed the Wove last August. This wearable features a long and flexible E-ink screen, and is designed to wrap and unwrap from around your wrist. Now E-ink is making it easier for other companies to launch competing designs. The screen tech company...

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The Sudden Demise of BookTrope is Forcing Authors to Become Publishers

When Booktrope launched its publishing service five years ago, this hybrid publisher offered authors the best of both worlds: a five-year contract with no costs for the author, and pro quality work on the book. But when the publisher suddenly shut down at the end of April, authors were abruptly...

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Correlation, Causation, and Why Having a Big Library as a Kid =/= Lifelong Income

There's a story going around this week which is likely going to tempt many into mistaking correlation for causation. Children who grow up with a large number of books in the house earn more money later in life, according to a new study published in the Economic Journal. Economists from the...

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Do Spoilers Ruin Stories? It’s More Complicated Than That

Depending on who you ask, spoilers are either the bane of a reader's existence or the best thing ever. Fans will tell you that spoilers either ruin the experience or enhance it, but if you ask me it's more complicated than that. Researchers at UC San Diego are now claiming that they have evidence...

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